


How the Light Gets In

by Robin_tCJ



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dollhouse Fusion, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Anal Sex, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Bottom Steve Rogers, Conspiracy, Dollhouse AU, Dollhouse Fusion, Dubious Morality, Dubious Science, Emotional Connection, Emotional pain, Established Relationship Sort Of, Feels, Fusion, M/M, Memory Loss, Mentions of Dubcon, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mind Control, Morality, Oral Sex, Pepper Potts Is a Good Bro, Rimming, Second Chances, Secret Identities, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers needs to save everyone, Tony Stark Feels, Top Tony Stark, character cameos, emotional manpain, fake memories, fake neuroscience, identity crisis, implanted memories, imprinted memories, imprinted personalities, mentions of BDSM, no powers au, prepare for feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-09-21 11:44:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9547676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Robin_tCJ/pseuds/Robin_tCJ
Summary: Dollhouse Fusion AU that you don’t need to have seen Dollhouse to understand. Tony is the Dollhouse’s neuro programmer. It’s his job to build and imprint personalities on the Dolls in the house so they can be rented out to a very select (rich) clientele. There’s one Doll in particular that has caught Tony’s eye, though, and all he wants in the world is to escape with Steve to freedom from the Dollhouse.But when Steve starts remembering, even after he should have been wiped, Tony realizes it may not be that simple.I live on comments and kudos! <3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the Dollhouse Fusion AU you didn’t ask for. You don’t need any knowledge of Dollhouse in order to understand this story, I tried to explain a little bit within the story so people unfamiliar with the show wouldn’t be confused, and I’m told I did an okay job at it.
> 
> Big, huge thanks to my two betas, who fixed EVERYTHING. [dapperanachronism](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dapperanachronism/profile) and [Amonae](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Amonae/profile), you guys are the best.
> 
> This also fulfills my Cap Ironman Bingo square for "AU of your choice."
> 
> You'll notice I "chose not to use archive warnings". I also tagged "mildly dubious consent". See the end notes for details why, including at least one very minor spoiler. Personally, I hate spoilers, but it's important to take care of yourselves, so if you think the "mildly dubious consent" tag may hold a trigger for you, check the end notes.

 

 

**There is a crack, a crack in everything  
** **That's how the light gets in.**  
-Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”

“Hello, Clint. How are you feeling?” Tony smiles down at the man in his chair, who gazes up at him, eyes innocent and guileless in a way that Tony just can’t consider natural. Clint’s a man of average height, which isn’t usually their sought-after type at the Dollhouse, but he has a few defining features that make him a more desirable addition to the business. His eyes are a unique greenish blue, and his biceps are about the same size around as Tony’s head, if he were to guess.

“Did I fall asleep?” Clint asks. He blinks long, soft-looking eyelashes up at Tony, full lips pulling into a soft, relaxed smile.

“For a little while,” Tony answers him, keeping his tone light and friendly. Truthfully, the tone of his words doesn’t matter – it’s only the words that matter. They have to be spoken so that the doll returns to that clean slate, that innocent, empty shell. Tony sort of hates when the Actives are in their doll state, but if he doesn’t follow the post-wipe script, they’ll get agitated and confused, and as much as he hates the Stepford-wife zombie-esque doll state, an agitated, confused doll is much, much worse.

“Shall I go now?” Clint asks, slowly sitting up from the imprinting chair.

Tony gestures toward the door, ignoring Coulson, Clint’s handler, leaning against the wall. “If you like,” he answers. Clint gives Coulson a nod in greeting and moves out of the room, heading toward the doll floor below; he’ll go down and one of the counsellors – Tony likes to call them wranglers in his head sometimes – will take him for a massage or a meal.

Tony turns to grin at Coulson. “So, did you have a good time?” he asks, smile turning sly.

“Everything went according to plan,” Coulson says, pushing away from the wall to leave the programming room.

“Oh, I’ll bet it did,” Tony snickers. “Come on, Coulson, don’t tell me you don’t get off a little watching him give it to some – wait, was it a girl or a guy? Nevermind, doesn’t matter – person who has such a hard time dating they had to literally buy someone to love them?”

“It’s not my favourite kind of engagement, and you know it,” Coulson replies, one eyebrow twitching in distaste. The truth is, Tony does know it, but Coulson is their most unflappable handler, and sometimes Tony just wants to just... flap.

Phil Coulson is the only handler who wears a three-piece suit to every engagement – and Tony’s been told, by other handlers who have worked with him on joint engagements, that he always manages to make the suit look natural in whatever environment the engagement is in. Sharon Carter’s favourite story is the time she and Coulson had taken Clint and Thor for a weekend engagement with several hunters – it had been some kind of elitist snob bowhunting weekend, Tony thinks – and hadn’t looked at all out of place in his navy suit, silver tie and shiny loafers. Sharon had said the wind hadn’t even ruffled Coulson’s perfectly neat hair – receding hairline or no.

“I’m just saying, what does it say about someone that _this_ is the thing they want to spend their hard-earned money on?”

“The fact that our clients pay for the company of the Actives is less about the client, and more about the kinds of skills the Actives come with. It’s not very often you can find a romantic partner that’s exactly what you’re looking for in a person,” Coulson shrugs. He has that gentle smile on his face – the one that Tony recognizes as the look of a man who is toeing the company line, and not entirely sure he believes it himself.

“But doesn’t that seem a little, I don’t know, hollow to you?” Tony asks. “Where’s the spark?”

Coulson pushes himself away from the wall and heads toward the door. “Some people aren’t always looking for the spark,” he says. “Some people maybe just want to be loved unconditionally for a while.”

Tony watches him, pensively tapping a screwdriver against his goatee. Just as Coulson’s almost out the door, Tony grins. “Hey, are you available to tag in if Clint gets tired in the middle? Should we be charging extra for that?”

“I have a taser,” Coulson reminds him as he steps out of the room, not even bothering to look back over his shoulder. “I’m not afraid to use it.”

“Save it for the bedroom, Mr. Spark,” Tony calls. Coulson’s stride doesn’t falter as he walks down the hallway toward the handlers’ locker room. With a shrug, Tony rolls his chair back to his workstation. He’ll get a reaction from Coulson one of these days, he’s sure.

“Where’s Ms. Potts?” The voice coming from his doorway startles him a little – he’d already started to get into the groove of building the imprint he’d been working on – and he whirls his chair around to face his boss, the manager of the Dollhouse. Maria Hill is a tall, strong-jawed woman with soft, brown hair and glittering eyes. A tall, older black man is standing just slightly behind her, managing to look intimidating despite – or perhaps because of – the black eyepatch covering his left eye.

“I sent her down to the storage room to get me some blank wedges. Why?”

“I’ve brought our newest handler down to meet you, I thought it would save time if you were both here.”

“You could always come back later,” Tony shrugs, moving to turn back to his station. He has things to do, and the new handler will either make it or he won’t. Besides, the only Active who’s in need of a handler right now is Steve, and Tony’s not quite ready to think about that whole situation just yet.

“Tony, this is Nick Fury,” Maria says, ignoring Tony’s suggestion entirely. “Nick, this is Tony Carbonelli, our head programmer.”

Tony rolls his eyes and begrudgingly reaches out to shake Fury’s hand. He can feel Fury’s eyes boring into him, and he glares back defiantly. Squeezes his hand a little tighter, because Fury can be as looming and pirate-looking as he wants but he’s not going to make Tony, of all people, cower in his wake.

“Carbonelli, is it?” Fury asks, voice carefully neutral. Tony’s not sure why. “Italian?”

He ignores the question, and glances toward the doorway where Pepper is coming back with a box full of imprint drives.

“Pepper! Pep. Light of my life, it’s good that you’re back, the new guy is here, and I’m already bored.”

“New guy?” Pepper walks in and places the box on a desk. She moves toward Fury with all the grace Tony can never muster, and reaches a hand out to shake. She’s the picture of cordial hospitality, and Tony is both disgusted and impressed by it. Her strawberry blonde hair is pulled back into a sleek ponytail, and her fine, elven features are soft and welcoming. Tony wonders if Fury can see the dangerous focus glittering in her eyes. Maybe he can – but he’s almost certainly not ready for it.

“You must be the new handler,” she says, greeting him with a genuine smile. Tony waits for her to tear him to pieces. “I’m Pepper Potts, assistant programmer.”

Tony continues to wait.

“Nick Fury,” Fury says, not smiling but somehow quirking the eyebrow not hidden by his eyepatch in an open greeting. Tony wonders how an eyebrow can be so expressive.

“I thought I’d introduce Nick around to the staff before you bring Steve up to program the handler script,” Maria tells them.

“Potts, you can handle the prep for that, can’t you?” Tony asks, turning toward Pepper. She arches a delicate eyebrow at him.

“Of course,” she responds, blinking rapidly at him. “Why, where are you going?”

“I’m gonna go along with Nicky, here, and show him all the cool stuff Maria isn’t going to mention.”

“That’s not necessary,” Maria starts, brow furrowed.

“I think you’ll find it invaluable to know which cafeteria items to avoid, which hallways have the most comprehensive security camera angles, and which corners are the best to jump out and scare the shit out of the dolls,” Tony says, grinning as he starts to head toward the door, ushering Fury ahead of him. Maria glares, but follows them out.

“Tony! That’s awful!” Pepper admonishes him, crossing her arms at him.

“What?” he salutes her and whirls on his way out the door. “It’s not like _I_ do it. I just wanna see Nicky do it.”

“Don’t call me Nicky,” Fury growls.

Tony grins – he probably shouldn’t be antagonizing Fury. He needs to keep himself in Fury’s good graces if he’s going to be Steve’s handler – but he also knows the value of playing the lovable-but-irritating buffoon. The best thing he can do for himself is get Fury to a point where the man doesn’t want to be around him, and doesn’t look too closely at Tony. Maybe he’ll decide Tony’s too ridiculous for any kind of subterfuge.

“Where to next?” Tony asks, turning to Maria. “Have you gone to see Bruce yet?”

“That’s where we’re headed,” she tells him, moving a little faster to walk ahead of Tony and Fury. “He’s expecting us.”

“Oh, so Bruce gets the courtesy of a courtesy call?”

“Well, _he_ might actually be busy,” Maria bites back, but there’s no real heat in the words. Tony knows full well that the house wouldn’t be able to run without him – Pepper is working on it, but she just doesn’t have the skill and finesse, yet, to build a coherent personality profile for the imprints. Plus, he hasn’t been allowed to teach her some of the more advanced procedures.

Tony rolls his eyes, skipping along behind them toward Bruce’s exam room.

There’s a chair not unlike the one in his own lab – similar to a dentist’s chair, if you don’t look too closely – and Bruce is puttering around the room, organizing tools and instruments. Tony lurches into the exam chair, grinning and propping his chin on his fist.

“Brucie! How’s your day going?”

“Good morning, Tony,” Bruce says, not turning around. “Has Maria been by with the new handler yet?”

“We’re right here, Dr. Banner,” she says, and Bruce whirls around in surprise, giving Tony a slightly annoyed glare. Tony smiles back and purses his lips in a mockery of a kiss.

“Ms. Hill,” he says, blinking his brown eyes owlishly. He reaches up to pull off his glasses as he moves forward to shake Fury’s hand.

“Nick Fury, here, is our newest handler,” Maria says, gesturing at the man in question. Fury nods as he reaches out to shake Bruce’s hand.

“Dr. Banner has been with us for about three years, now,” she explains. “Even longer than Tony has.”

“Doctor,” Fury greets him. Bruce runs a hand through his messy hair, then crosses his arms across his chest awkwardly.

Tony sighs. Bruce is terribly shy around most people. Not the Actives, not the dolls, because they’re his charges. With patients, Bruce is always at ease, always comfortable. The science is where his heart lies – a feeling Tony can identify with. So, when he’d noticed that about the doctor, he’d gone out of his way to beat down his emotional defences and essentially force Bruce to be comfortable enough around him that they’d become friends.

Tony sighs with exaggerated boredom as Bruce, Fury and Maria make small talk. Maria glares, then checks her watch.

“The Actives should be moving on to their next activity,” she says, turning toward Fury. “We can go observe your charge for a little while, then I’ll pair you up with Phil Coulson for an engagement. How does that sound?”

“Lead the way,” he says, gesturing toward the door. He nods at Bruce before they leave. “Dr. Banner.”

“It was nice to meet you, Mr. Fury.”

Tony doesn’t say anything, but he does concede a quick wave as they go by. Once the room is clear, Bruce’s whole posture relaxes, and he turns toward Tony.

“So, what’s your impression?” Bruce asks him, gesturing toward the door with his chin. “Of Fury.”

Tony shrugs one shoulder, splaying out on the exam chair. “I don’t trust him.”

“You just met him.”

“And he doesn’t seem trustworthy.”

“Is anybody, around here?” Bruce asks, voice quiet, as he turns back to organizing his cupboard.

Tony eyes him for a moment, then lurches up from his chair and heads toward the door. “Not a one,” he says, on his way out.

Tony starts heading toward his lab, to get ready for the handler script – and prep whatever engagement Hill has planned for Coulson and Fury – but he slows on his way along the landing, his eye drawn to the floor below. The Actives are milling around, each headed toward a new activity to pass the time. A few are out on engagements – he’d sent Daisy out with Mack, and Wanda out with Melinda earlier today. Pietro is due back this evening with his handler, Luke.

But still, there are a few Actives moving around the floor. Tony can see Jessica and Janet on their way to massages, while Sam and Thor are headed toward the art corner. He can’t see Clint or James at the moment, but, then again, he can’t see the entire floor from this vantage point. They could have moved toward the eating area, or could be in the showers, since they’d both had engagements recently. Or swimming, or in the sauna, or in the zen garden doing yoga. Any number of things.

Tony glances toward the art corner, and sees broad shoulders, a strong jawline, and gorgeous, innocent blue eyes. Steve, the Active he can’t seem to stop staring at, gives him a gentle, distant smile, then goes back to his art project.

The dolls paint. Scott, the art ‘instructor’ (Tony uses the term loosely because honestly he thinks Scott’s full of shit) says it keeps them from getting unruly and confused. Tony thinks he just wants to keep his job.

Tony hates the dolls. When they’re in their ‘clean slate’ doll state, devoid of any feeling deeper than the desire to rest and do as they’re told, he gets creeped out being around them. He hates wiping them of their personalities, and he really, really hates getting new Actives into the house, when he has to map their beautiful, intricate personalities, and then essentially delete them. They are, of course, on a back-up wedge, but that doesn’t ease the distaste in his mouth any.

But Steve is different. The dolls, while comfortable with their existence in the house, don’t really form any memories. There is an awareness, a routine – where they sleep, when they eat, how they wash themselves; but there isn’t a mechanism for them to form memories. They recognize other dolls as friends, and they know the staff. Otherwise, each day is the same as the last, but as they have no memory of it, it’s both new and familiar at the same time.

Steve, though. Steve always notices Tony watching him, and he always looks up and smiles at him. Tony knows that’s dangerous. He knows his own infatuation with the doll is dangerous, nevermind enjoying – encouraging – Steve’s acknowledgement of him.

But he can’t help it. Steve is somewhat new to the Dollhouse. He’d signed his contract only a year ago, and Tony had marvelled at his brain scan when he was doing his initial brain map before beginning the wiping process. He’d seen thousands of brain scans, created tens of thousands of personalities based on those scans, based on combinations of hundreds of different brain maps.

Yet, Steve’s had stood out. There had been poetry in the images, in the wash of yellows and greens and blues in the neural infrared scan. It had been beautiful – even more beautiful than Steve’s appearance.

Tony shakes his head a little at himself and glances at Steve’s art project. He hasn’t figured that one out yet, actually.

All the dolls, without fail, paint variations on the same scene. It’s the only scene Scott works with them on. A grassy hill, a bright yellow sun, and a tall tree covered in red apples. It’s simple, primary colours. Easy for the dolls, who don’t have memories of experience or landscapes.

But Steve’s art is always different. Today, it’s an abstract of white stars over blue and red circles. Steve may be as pliant as any other of the dolls, but if not given a direct order, if not given the specifics of a task from start to finish, he tends to do his own thing, to figure out a path on his own. Tony loves it, as much as he knows it could get him sent to the Attic.

Tony watches him for a few moments, wondering what sorts of thoughts Steve has – more than he wonders about the other dolls. He knows it’s dangerous, that he shouldn’t.

But Tony can’t help it. He’d fallen in love with that initial personality profile, that first brain scan. The Steve who had walked through the doors and signed the next five years of his life away, as far as Tony is concerned, is the most amazing man he’s ever met. And the empty shell down there, while a mere echo of that man, never fails to hold Tony’s interest. He can’t help but be fascinated.

Fury is dangerous. Tony worries that Fury’s sharp eye will notice the little smiles, will notice Tony watching Steve for too long and a little too often. He also worries that Fury might figure out how Tony spends his three days off a month – an endeavour that, so far, not even Maria has managed to discover.

It’s almost enough for him to change his plans, to skip it this month.

But he can’t. His days off are in only a few more days. He can’t quite bring himself to give it up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On Wednesdays, we wear pink -- and we update with a new chapter!
> 
> Thanks again for all the kudos and comments - they give me life!

When Tony gets back to the lab, Pepper has almost finished reprogramming the chair to upload the handler script. As she works on the finishing touches, he double checks her code. It’s technically flawless, but inelegant. He inserts a few commands and then turns toward the imprint banks.

They work together without needing to speak, though Tony can’t help but fidget and bop his head to the music he’d turned on as soon as he’d entered the room. It’s playing softly, though his preference would be loud. Unfortunately, the Actives aren’t able to deal with AC/DC, so he has to keep the noise down to a minimum.

“Hello,” says a deep, neutral voice from the doorway. Tony turns – it’s Steve.

“Hello, Steve.” Tony automatically adopts the soft, welcoming tone that tends to set the Actives at ease. He hates having to turn down all his nervous energy into such a calm demeanour, but he knows it’s best for the dolls, and the truth is, as much as the doll state creeps him out, he takes his responsibility of caring for them very seriously.

He can’t help allowing his eyes to roam over Steve from top to bottom, though. He’s wearing a simple white T-shirt and grey sweatpants – the dolls always wear neutral, comfortable clothes when they’re not on an engagement. The fabrics are soft and simple, to avoid any stimulus overload. Steve’s shoulders are broad, with wide, well-developed biceps and forearms coming out from the tight sleeves. The T-shirt hugs his waist, managing to show the ridges of his abdominal muscles, and the sweatpants ride just a little low on his hips.

Tony often claims he doesn’t understand how people can pay to have sex with dolls, but once in awhile, when he looks at Steve like this, he gets it.

“Is it time for my treatment?” Steve asks, stepping toward the chair with a soft smile on his face. Tony smiles and gestures toward the chair.

“If you’d like,” Pepper says, moving forward. Steve blinks at her, then turns back to Tony and gives him a small smile. He tries not to react – the last thing he needs is Pepper noticing Steve’s slightly unusual behaviour, his preference to deal with Tony above all others, and questioning it where someone like Hill might hear her.

He’s saved from the questioning glance she sends him when Fury walks into the room.

“So how, exactly, does this work?” he asks.

Tony flaps a hand at Pepper, and she rolls her eyes before handing him the sheet of paper. It has a few lines of typed words, and he takes it from her and passes it directly to Fury.

“I’ll turn the chair on, you’ll read your words, he’ll say his – you need the crib notes, but they’re programmed into this particular wipe for him,” Tony explains. “Once you say the whole thing, he’ll automatically respond to them from here on out – won’t matter if he’s wiped or out on an engagement, he’ll always respond.”

“What’s the point?”

Tony rolls his eyes. “You get that when we imprint the Actives, they _become_ that person, right? It’s not play acting, they don’t just _think_ they’re that person. They _are_ them. There is no other reality for them. They have those memories, the experiences, everything.”

“Right,” Fury says, managing to look both intrigued and affronted at the same time by the explanation.

“Exactly, so that means they think that whatever their engagement is? That’s their life. There’s nothing else for them, no Dollhouse to come back to. So the scripts, they’re a call and response to trigger the Actives into doing what it is we need them to do. They come here for a treatment, which is their very favourite thing.”

“I enjoy my treatments,” Steve pipes up, helpfully, from the chair.

“And they need to trust you. They need to do what you tell them when you’re out on an engagement – for their own safety.”

“Right,” Fury says.

“So, the Handler-Active script. We have to program it in – it will be a bond between the two of you. It will only work with you. That’s the point. It can vary later, but for programming, it has to be verbatim.”

“So I read this, and then he’ll trust me implicitly, no matter what? No matter who he thinks he is?”

“No matter who he is. Remember, Nicky, they don’t _think_ they’re someone else, they _are_ someone else.”

“Seems dangerous,” Fury says. “That level of trust.”

Tony shrugs. “Depends who you’re trusting.” He gently presses against Steve’s shoulder, and Steve relaxes into the chair. The halo slides down automatically, and Tony waits until it’s in position before he taps a few keys at his work station, and Steve tenses – gently – as the chair and halo do their work. The halo casts a violet light over Steve’s head.

Once Steve relaxes, he glances up at Fury, who’s moved into his line of sight.

Fury glances down at his sheet of paper, and reads the first line aloud. “Everything’s going to be all right,” he says woodenly.

“Now that you’re here,” Steve says, the words automatic. It’s programmed in, but saying them will still cement the trust and effectiveness into all his imprints. The call and response will build themselves into the Active architecture, and then Steve will respond to Fury no matter what personality is in his head.

There’s a tiny, unspeakable part of Tony that wishes he could program the same for himself, but he pushes it down in favour of being a decent human being.

“Do you trust me?” Fury reads.

“With my life,” Steve responds, and if Tony isn’t mistaken, he thinks maybe Steve’s eyes had flicked to him, briefly, almost unnoticeably. But Steve does nothing else out of the ordinary, and Fury just looks down at him, not showing any emotion.

“So, that’s it,” Tony says, after a beat of silence. He ends the program and gestures toward the door. “Steve, you can go now.”

“Thank you,” Steve says, as he pushes himself up from the chair and walks out the door.

“Just like that?” Fury asks, after a moment. “That’s all it takes, and now he’ll trust me?”

“Of course,” Tony shrugs. “How do you think we manage here?”

Fury tilts his head and looks at Tony oddly for a moment, before crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.

“So what happened to Steve’s last handler?” he asks.

Tony shrugs. “He quit, I guess.”

“How long ago?”

“Couple months, give or take.”

Fury’s visible eyebrow furrows down. “So, what, he’s been going out without a handler? Or not going out?”

Tony shrugs. “Depends on the engagements. We’ve got long-term clients, people we trust, and certain engagements don’t require a lot of oversight. Vanilla romantic engagements? We can get by with a driver.”

“Those aren’t the only kinds of engagements this place offers, though, are they?” Fury asks.

“No,” Tony agrees. “But the more interesting, unpredictable engagements? We’ve been sending him out with Coulson.”

“But what about Coulson’s doll?”

“Clint? We try to schedule them so there’s no conflict. Obviously. That’s what you do when you’re short staffed, Nicky.”

“Stop calling me Nicky,” Fury glares.

“Sure thing, Nicky,” Tony says with a jaunty little salute. Fury glares at him harder, then whirls and leaves the room.

Pepper glances over. “I like him,” she says, nodding her chin at Fury.

“You like everyone,” Tony gripes.

“Correction: I like everyone who isn’t an idiot,” she argues.

Tony concedes the point.

He doesn’t get too far into working on a few different codes before his intercom buzzes.

“Tony, do you have a minute?” It’s Maria, looking composed and professional on the little screen.

“I am – wow, I am just _super_ busy right now, Maria. Can we reschedule?”

“I’d like to see you in my office, please,” she barrels on, ignoring his protests. She disconnects the call, and Tony huffs out a long breath and rolls his eyes.

“Oh, go,” Pepper says, moving in behind him. “I can manage here.”

“I know you _can_ , I just don’t _want_ to,” he says, standing up from his chair anyway. He heads for the door, turning to walk backwards so he can give her a stern glare on his way out the door. “Try not to break my chair while I’m gone.”

Pepper makes a shooing motion with her hand. “Your chair is safe, but I make no claims about your Boba Fett Bobble Head,” she says.

“If you hurt Bobble Fett I’ll wipe you myself,” he threatens.

“Go see what your boss wants,” she says, voice fond.

He grins at her and heads down the hall to the elevator. He uses his key card, with its specialized identification chip, to access the elevator panel and head up toward the surface levels, and Maria’s office. The Actives, as well as Tony’s lab and Bruce’s exam room, are all in the sub-basement levels. The building’s main levels house various other unsophisticated research projects – all funded by the Dollhouse’s income, and completely uninteresting to Tony – and the upper levels house the executive offices. He rides the elevator up to Maria’s office, and gives her assistant-of-the-week a vague, disinterested wave on his way in. He’ll be fired by next Tuesday. They never make it more than three weeks.

“Tony, glad you could join me,” Maria says, not glancing up from her desk. As though it had been a request, not an order. She waves at the chair in front of her desk with her pen. “Have a seat.”

“I really do have actual work to do, you know,” he says, flopping into the chair and spreading his legs out in as rebellious a posture as he can manage.

“Does that include working on the range of the remote wipes?”

Tony pinches the bridge of his nose. “Come on, Maria. You know that’s easier said than done. This isn’t the kind of thing you just add a booster to. It takes finesse. The remote wipes still have to be _targeted_ , or you’ll just wipe any doll within the given radius. There are a lot of obstacles here.”

“So you keep telling me. But the Director has been impatient with me, and therefore I am being impatient with you,” she tells him.

“The remote wipes already have a 100 yard range,” Tony starts.

“Yes, and the Director is asking for five miles,” Maria reminds him.

“What possible purpose could we have for a five-mile range on a remote wipe? Has he even considered all the possible variables?”

“Tony, you know –”

“No, no, let me finish. Not only should a doll always have a handler within a one-mile radius – because let’s be real, here, anything less means the handler’s not doing their job, right?” He holds up a hand when Maria opens her mouth, not giving her the chance to agree or disagree with him. “And not only that, but what happens when a doll is wiped? They can’t survive out there. Do you know how long it can take a handler to get to an Active five miles away? Even our fastest handlers can only run a six-minute mile. Okay, no, maybe Natasha can get there in 15 minutes. And running is the only way they’re getting there if they had to wipe from five miles away, instead of driving _toward_ the active before activating the wipe!”

“Tony!” Maria interrupts him.

“I’m just saying – there is no good reason to insist on a five-mile range!”

“Except that the Director has asked us to,” she says, voice hard as nails. “You are a programmer, Tony. You don’t make the decisions here. The Director does, and he’s decided that this is something we need to work on. Therefore, you need to work on it.”

“It’s completely unnecessary.”

“It needs to be done by next week. Do you understand?”

Tony glares, and she meets his eye without flinching.

“Do you even know the Director’s name?” he asks, voice bitter. “Or are you just as in the dark as the rest of us?”

“Get to work, Tony.”

He glares again, fully aware she hasn’t answered his question, then storms out of the office and back to the elevator.

He hasn’t calmed down by the time he gets back down to the sub-basement, and he stomps into his lab.

“I guess she didn’t call you up for a raise?” Pepper asks, glancing up from the keyboard. Tony flops sideways into the wiping chair and lets out a huff of air.

“She’s ridiculous. No, the _Director_ is ridiculous. What the hell is up that guy’s ass, anyway?”

“Is this about the remote wipes again?”

Tony groans in disgust. “Who does he think he is, anyway? Every time we get an order down the pipe from him, it’s some nonsensical, dangerous liability! Five-mile remote wipes. In what universe is that safe?”

“He must think –” Pepper starts.

“No. There’s no argument here. He _never_ puts the dolls ahead of profit. Never!”

“Well, he does have a company to run. There are probably shareholders,” Pepper says, trying to make her voice sound soothing. To Tony it just sounds grating.

“It’s dangerous, and I won’t do it.”

“You have to,” she says. “Tony, I know you don’t like it, but – maybe he doesn’t intend to use it, maybe he’s just looking at it like a failsafe.”

Tony sighs, stands, and takes her arm so he can drag her over toward the window. He gestures down to the doll floor, with the Actives milling about aimlessly.

“Look at them. They can’t – they have no idea how the world works. They’re completely innocent. They don’t have the capacity to deal with the noise, the pain, the fucking _impact_ of our society. They’re like children. You can’t – he can’t expect us to be okay with dropping them into the middle of Times Square, if that’s where they are when they get wiped. It’s not right.”

Pepper sighs, giving him a sad, gentle smile. “I know, Tony.”

“It’s not right,” he says again, voice quiet. She squeezes his hand comfortingly, and they watch the dolls for a moment.

“Don’t you two have work to do?”

Tony turns toward the door, and grins at Natasha Romanoff as she enters the room with Sam in tow.

“Well, we didn’t until you came in the room,” he says, turning straight for the wedge drawers. He tracks his gaze down the column of seemingly random numbers and letters until he finds the code for Sam’s scheduled engagement. He glances at the sticker on top. “Ooh, wine and dine. Nice weekend for someone.”

Natasha rolls her eyes and stands next to Pepper while Sam climbs into the chair. “Someone being not me. I’ll be eating Chinese take-out in the back of a van in Chelsea.”

“Ooh, from Double Dragon’s?” Tony asks, eyes lighting up.

“Wouldn’t be worth a Wednesday night if it weren’t,” Natasha nods.

Tony pops the wedge into the slot and starts the chair without much preamble. While Sam’s being imprinted, he turns back to Natasha. Natasha might be his favourite handler – even though they’re not technically close. Natasha doesn’t really let anyone get particularly close, except perhaps Coulson. But Tony thinks Natasha is one of the more capable handlers on staff, even more adaptable to changing situations than Coulson is.

And, if he’s honest, Tony’s more than a little terrified of her, which he finds somehow intriguing.

“If you love me, you’ll bring back some mushu pork,” he tells her, trying to make himself look as pitiful as possible.

“So, shrimp dumplings it is.”

“You are cruel,” he says, as the chair powers down. “You know I’m allergic to shellfish.”

Sam sits up, blinking, until his eyes hit Natasha.

“Sorry, miss, can you tell me the time?” he asks her. Where his voice had been soft and lacking inflection before, he’s now grinning and affable. His eyes, instead of wide and innocent, are bright and maybe twinkling with a touch of flirtation.

“Just past six,” she tells him after glancing at her watch.

“Damn. I’ve got a date in less than half an hour. I’ve gotta get going. This woman – man, she’s just amazing. I’ve been waiting for this for weeks.”

“I can give you a ride, if you like,” Natasha says, a small smirk on her face.

“God, that would be great. I really appreciate it.”

Natasha gives Tony and Pepper a wave before she leads Sam, still bouncing with excitement for his ‘date’, over to the elevators.

“Romantic engagement?” Pepper asks, eyebrow raised delicately.

“Ohhh yeah,” Tony nods, grinning wolfishly. “He doesn’t act like it, but this is going to be one _dirty_ engagement.”

Pepper snorts, but somehow manages to make it sound elegant. “Aren’t they all?”

“Well, no, there was that time we sent Clint to the … wait, no, that one ended up dirty, too.”

Pepper laughs, the sound like music in the dark lab.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be out of the country next week, so I can't be certain I'll have internet access on Wednesday. If not, I will post as soon as possible!


	3. Chapter 3

“That bunch of pussies hasn’t got a hope in hell! Not one!” Steve – Captain Smythe, today, according to the imprint Tony had built – bites out, voice hard and carrying all the way from the elevator.

“Well, you tried. You whipped ‘em a little closer into shape, anyway,” Fury says, sounding uncomfortable. Tony bites back a smile – the idea of Fury trying to, basically, comfort the no-nonsense drill sergeant makes him want to chuckle a little.

“The army _really_ has to engage a doll for basic training these days?” Fury growls as he leads ‘Smythe’ into the room.

“Come on, you bunch of pantywaists!” ‘Smythe’ growls. “Let’s get this treatment over with so I can get back to being disappointed in the US Army!”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Technically, in order to keep certain senators happy enough to continue to keep our little venture here from getting caught in the crosshairs of any of the investigative branches of the government, we have to engage a limited number of Actives to said government each month.”

“So they ask for drill sergeants?”

Tony shrugs a little. “Well, I _could_ build the most brilliant, engaging and successful secretary of state the free world has ever known, but they can’t take the chance of the public finding out that he’s a doll.”

“Or, I assume, that the Dollhouse exists?”

Tony fires up the machine and begins wiping Steve back to a blank slate.

“God,” he says, a little wistful. “With the amount of psychological studies I have at my disposal? I could build a president. One that everyone wanted to vote for. It could unite the parties – the whole country.”

“That sounds unethical – and keep in mind that I’m aware of the contextual irony,” Fury says, waving a hand in the general area of the wipe chair.

Steve sits up and smiles blindingly up at Tony. “Did I fall asleep?”

Tony ignores the skip in his heart at the smile, and returns it with a forced one of his own. “For a little while.”

“Shall I go now?”

“If you like,” Tony says with a nod.

Steve hesitates for a moment before he stands and walks out the door. Tony notices it – he just hopes Fury hadn’t. He doesn’t understand why, in his doll state, Steve seems to have developed an affinity for him. It’s unsafe – if it were an isolated incident it wouldn’t matter, but it keeps happening, and Tony knows that if the guys in security pick up on it, they’re going to start to ask questions that Tony isn’t able to answer – and Steve could be headed for the Attic.

“So, how does it feel to pop your cherry?” Tony asks, grinning at Fury as he changes the subject entirely.

Fury rolls his eyes. This had been his first solo engagement out with Steve.

“Honestly?” he says, after a moment. “It all feels a little… sordid to me.”

“Hey, you had a pretty tame engagement,” Tony says. “You’re definitely going to have worse.”

Fury shakes his head. “I’m not worried about the romantic engagements – sex is sex, people have been paying for sex since the beginning of time.”

“So you have something against the military?”

“No. It’s the lack of choice. The Actives don’t get to pick and choose which assignments they take,” Fury says, visible eye glaring balefully at Tony. “You choose for them.”

“Well, actually, the scheduling department chooses for them. I just build the personality.”

“You know what I mean. Someone else chooses. They don’t get a choice. They don’t ever have the option of saying no.”

Tony stares at him for a moment. The words come, almost unbidden. He’s not sure why he feels the need to defend the Dollhouse, and its practices, to Fury, but he can’t seem to help himself.

“They signed a contract. They knew what they were getting into. There was a whole checklist on the form – I’ve seen it. In order to become an active, they have to initial beside each section, and it contains words like ‘including but not limited to.’ There’s nothing we build into those imprints, those engagements, that they didn’t sign up for. Voluntarily. Technically, none of what we do here is illegal.”

“They can’t have known some of the things they’d be forced to do.”

“No one is here against their will,” Tony says, voice growing sharper. “We’re all here because we chose to be – including the dolls. No one is being forced to do anything. They signed the contracts of their own free will.”

“You know damn well some of them were coerced,” Fury argues, setting his jaw stubbornly.

“They made a choice,” Tony says with a shrug of one shoulder. It’s sharper than it needs to be. “It might have been a hard choice, but it was still a choice. If they were coerced, it’s because they’d made a choice to do something bad, and decided they’d rather spend five years blissfully unaware of what’s happening to them than spend the next 20 in prison, or worse.”

It’s a reality that everyone is aware of at the Dollhouse. Many of their dolls – though, not all – are here as a sort of plea bargain arrangement. Tony’s not convinced he would make the same choice, but he hasn’t exactly lived a life of crime so he can’t be sure.

“It’s, at best, blackmail,” Fury says.

“They all consent! They knew going in that some of their engagements will be sexual, and they signed anyway.”

“I can’t think of any situation where a person could consent to anything like this,” Fury growls.

“People can be surprising.”

Tony’s head jerks up at the comment – Steve is standing in the doorway, apparently having been listening to their entire conversation. His face is still impassive, soft and peaceful, and his voice had remained calm and level, like Tony and Fury had been arguing about whether or not it would rain that afternoon.

Fury and Tony glance at one another, then turn back to Steve, who gives them both a serene smile, then turns and heads down the hall to make his way to the stairs, and the doll floor.

Fury stares at Tony for a moment, then, before following suit and leaving the room.

Tony flops down into his seat, trying to swallow down the stunned prickle across his skin.

 _Why would Steve have stayed around for that?_ He thinks.

+++++

“That’s not going to work,” Tony says, glancing over from his chair. Pepper’s back stiffens, and she turns around to glare at him.

He points at the holo display in front of her – particularly, he points at the red highlighted portion of the parietal lobe of the brain displayed there. “That. Right there. Not going to work.”

“Why not?” Pepper asks, jaw tensed enough to make Tony think she’s doing everything in her power not to grit her teeth at him.

“Did you even read the engagement parameters?”

“Of course I did,” Pepper says, voice dry.

“Then why aren’t you _following_ them?” Tony asks, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair.

“The engagement says she’ll be a college student, that she needs to be failing her Ethics class and is trying to convince her professor to give her a passing grade. How is this not following that?”

Tony rolls his eyes, then pushes his chair over toward her workstation. He points again at the highlighted portion.

“Okay, so, here? This, right here, is your problem. Can you tell me why?”

“Why bother, when you’re about to tell me anyway?”

Tony ignores the sarcasm in her voice. “Think of it like this. When it comes to engagements, you have persona, and then you have parameters. In this case, you’ve got the persona conflicting with the parameters. Her parameters are the college student, hot-for-teacher young woman who needs this grade or she’ll get kicked out of school. That’s fine, you’ve got that. But the persona here is the problem. You’ve pulled these moral characteristics – and that’s going to contradict the parameters. If she can’t bring herself to sleep with her professor because it’s against her ethics, the engagement will be a flop.” Tony grins. “And she probably wouldn’t be failing Ethics.”

“Okay, but the engagement parameters specifically state that she should have a Catholic schoolgirl vibe,” Pepper argues.

Tony holds up a finger. “Right. But if you take this component...” he pauses, swiping through the holographic menu until he comes upon the submenu he wants. He drags a new component in and replaces the old one. The brain on the display fades to a uniform green. “There! Just like that.”

Pepper rolls her eyes. “I don’t understand why we’re doing this. You won’t let me work on the persona-building anyway.”

Tony shrugs. “Technically, I’m not even supposed to be showing you this much. The Director has denied my authorization requests on three separate occasions.”

“Then why are you?” she asks, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

“In case of emergencies,” he says. “At this point, you’re authorized to imprint the pre-built personas, and I’ve built them all for this weekend anyway.”

“Why don’t you just imprint one of the Actives with the knowledge base?” she suggests. “You could take more than a weekend off every month if someone else knew how to build the imprints – and use them. And an Active would be wiped afterward, so –”

“Nope,” Tony interrupts her, putting a hand out as though to physically stop her words from reaching him anymore.

“Why?” she asks, frustrated. It’s not the first time they’ve had this conversation.

“The tech is too delicate. You know that.”

“You’re a control freak,” she counters.

“Of _course_ I’m a control freak,” Tony bursts out, gesturing wildly around the room. “Look at what we do here, Pep. Think of the security checks you had to go through just to get in on the ground floor. This tech gets in the wrong hands, can you imagine what would happen to the world?”

“How can you be so sure we’re the right hands?” Pepper asks, after a moment. Tony glares at her.

A part of him does wish he could teach her more, that she could take over proper imprinting, and he could have more time off. But as it is, he’s tied to the house, and there’s no point in fighting it.

“Who’s our next Active coming in for an imprint?” he asks, changing the subject.

+++++

The next Active, as it turns out, is James. Tony watches him as he allows his handler, Grant Ward, to lead him into the lab.

“Good morning, James,” Tony says, lowering his voice into the soothing, calm tones he always tries to use with the dolls. “Are you ready for your treatment?”

“I like my treatments,” James says.

“You like cardboard,” Ward mutters under his breath.

Tony gives him a sharp look – he’s not doing it to try and scold Ward. He knows better than that. He’s also not doing it to try and defend James’ honour; James wouldn’t know the difference, really.

It’s not that the Actives are stupid. They have feelings, it’s just that most of those feelings are feelings of mild positivity. It’s not just because their personalities have been wiped down to basic brass tacks – it’s more than that. They exist in a bubble where there are no worries, no negative stimuli, not a care in the world.

Plus, of course, there are the sedatives and psychotropic drugs they pump into the pods while the Actives are asleep in their bunks.

No, Tony’s sharp look is mostly for his own benefit. It’s one of the many ways he can feel superior to Ward. Because Ward has always treated the Actives not like people, but like _things_. He’s incredibly disinterested in the dolls’ well-being – especially, it seems, James’.

Mostly, Tony hopes he never becomes that jaded in the work they do here. He wants to always consider the dolls – _all_ of the dolls – people, even though they may not always seem particularly engaging.

Tony glances at the imprint instructions again, and frowns. He hates this kind of imprint. It’s a sexual submissive engagement. He doesn’t understand why they allow the Actives to be submissives in BDSM engagements. Tony’s always felt that they should at least be on equal footing – or even be the dominant partner. Plenty of people are happy to pay for an experienced professional to dominate them.

His reservations have always been ignored, and the protocol is to simply charge double with submissive engagements, with exorbitant penalties should an Active be seriously or permanently harmed. He’s tried to have the policy changed – he’s had several handlers, as well as Bruce and a few other staff members, on his side on the issue. He’d thought, actually, that Hill had agreed with them. But it didn’t matter. None of it mattered – the Director’s word was law, and the Director said they would continue the practice.

Tony finds it horrifying, but he can’t risk building a parameter into the imprint that would make the doll fight for their own autonomy.

He _can_ , however, at least build in a high tolerance for pain and an enjoyment for the activities in question, and take comfort in the fact that the Active will forget how they were treated when they come back to his chair for another ‘treatment.’

“Is there a reason it’s taking so long?” Ward asks, leaning against the door jamb.

“Sorry,” Tony says, not feeling particularly apologetic. “Science rushes for no man.”

“Well, I don’t like to wait, so pick up the pace. We have a schedule to keep.”

Tony rolls his eyes and hits a few buttons to make the chair recline, and then smiles gently down at James. He takes in the sharp jaw line, the long, soft hair, and those pale blue eyes meeting his. “This may pinch a little,” he says, and this time the apology in his voice is more sincere.

He punches a button, and the halo lights up, and James’ body convulses. His face contorts a little, then relaxes as the first sensation of – not exactly pain, more like discomfort – subsides, and the imprint re-maps his brain.

It only takes a minute.

James blinks, and then his eyes flick down. He’s laying down, so he looks at his feet, rather than the floor.

“Let’s get going,” Ward says impatiently, stepping forward to grab James’ elbow – well, technically this imprint’s name is Sasha – and hauls him to his feet.

“Yes, sir,” Sasha says, eyes downcast. His voice comes out in a breathy Russian accent, pitched a little lower than James’ voice. Tony’s not sure why this client – this _repeat_ client, and Tony tries not to think too hard about the state James has come back in after these engagements on prior occasions – wants the doll to be Russian, but who is he to question another man’s kinks?

“Be careful,” he calls after them. He’s not sure if it’s Ward he’s talking to, or Sasha.

Or maybe it’s James.

He watches them make their way to the elevator. As he turns toward his workstation, he glimpses colour in his peripheral vision.

When he glances around to see, it’s Steve. He’s dressed in black sweats today, with a muted red sleeveless top. Tony’s eyes flicker over his chest, over his broad shoulders, his heavy, rounded biceps.

“Steve. What are you doing up here?” he asks. The dolls don’t often venture off the main floor, up the stairs to his lab. He knows Steve isn’t scheduled for an engagement – and Fury is nowhere to be seen.

“I heard a noise,” Steve replies simply. “Is James alright?”

Tony blinks, then narrows his eyes. “Are you worried about him?”

“James is my friend,” Steve says.

Tony eyes him for a moment. “Yeah. Listen, Steve, would you like to go for a swim?”

“I like to swim. It’s good exercise.”

“Sure.” Tony keeps staring, searching for a hint of … he’s not sure what. Something. Anything, even the slightest bit off. He doesn’t know why Steve has come up the stairs, and he doesn’t know why Steve is asking after James. The Actives know one another, of course, but the drugs in their system and the alterations Tony made to their short-term and long-term memory storage when he wiped them the first time is supposed to make it so that the dolls don’t connect to each other. They can’t – there’s nothing to connect to.

Except, really, Tony already knows Steve is somehow different than the others. If nothing else, his paintings show that. He doesn’t know why no one – Bruce, Maria, even Pepper – has questioned him about it. He should be the first one they ask. Have they not noticed?

“Exercise helps us be our best,” Steve says with a small smile. “I try to be my best.”

Tony blinks at him for another moment, then gestures toward the door. Steve leaves without protest, no doubt heading for the swimming pool.

Tony watches him go, and then stares at the empty hall for longer than is strictly necessary.


	4. Chapter 4

“I still don’t like it,” Fury says, practically growling as he paces the imprint room. Tony shrugs and hands a wireless tablet over to Pepper, who hits a few keys and moves toward the desk.

“You don’t have to like it,” Tony says. “That’s the engagement.”

“No contact? No eyes on the client? Why would Assistant Director Hill agree to this?” Fury glares at Tony, then at Pepper.

“It’s completely safe!” Tony insists. “This is a repeat engagement, Nick. Totally innocuous.”

Fury looks like he’s going to protest further, but Tony just barrels on. “Seriously. Steve’s been sent out to meet with this client every month for the last five. I know you’re new, but we _do_ know what we’re doing here. If this client has requested a no-eyes, no surveillance, anonymous engagement, and if Hill has signed off on it…” he trails off.

“Steve really has been on these engagements before,” Pepper says, somewhat soothingly. “He’s always come back without a scratch on him.”

“But with Tony being off this weekend –”

Pepper rolls her eyes. “I can manage a few basic imprints and watching the vitals on the Actives out in the field.”

“Okay, look,” Tony says, trying to defuse the situation. “We’ve been here a while, Fury. We don’t want the Actives to get hurt any more than you do. We’re familiar with this engagement, and this client is one Maria trusts. Your job here is to make sure Steve gets where he needs to go, and back again.”

Fury glares at him, and he’s about to say more when one of the staff brings Steve in.

“Is it time for my treatment?” he asks, smiling softly at Tony and Fury.

“Yes, Steve,” Tony says, voice automatically gentling. “Please, have a seat.”

“Thank you,” Steve says, moving toward the chair. As it begins to recline, Fury sighs.

“I just don’t understand the engagement. The history says he’s never come back having had sexual contact,” Fury says. “What kind of person engages the Dollhouse and then doesn’t have sex with the Active?”

Tony shrugs. “Who’s to say?”

“I have to wonder what kind of person engages a doll just to be friends for a weekend.”

“It sounds like he’s lonely,” Pepper says, moving forward to punch a few keys on the keyboard. Tony’s jaw tightens as he works.

“Say I’m a billionaire,” Fury says. “I can hire anyone to do anything. Doesn’t matter what it is, _someone_ will do it for enough money. I want sex? I can buy it. I want friends? I can buy those, too. So why am I giving a million dollars to a place like this? I already have everything I want.”

Tony meets his eye for a moment as the chair lights up, as the imprint is pushed into Steve’s brain.

“No one has everything they want,” Tony says. “If they have everything, they want something else. We’re the only ones that can provide that.”

“It just doesn’t sit right with me,” Fury says. If Fury weren’t so terrifying, Tony might categorize his tone as ‘petulant.’

Steve sits up from the chair, finished its work, and stretches a little. “Good afternoon,” he says, voice coming out in a rich English accent. “Does anyone have the time? I believe I may be late for a meeting.”

Fury rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Why don’t you come with me, Mr. Bridge. I’ll give you a ride to the house.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful, thank you. I believe there may be a game of backgammon calling my name.”

Fury gives Tony one last glare.

“Keep your distance!” Tony calls the reminder after him.

“Okay, that’s the last one,” Pepper says, crossing her arms.

“You’re sure you don’t need anything else?” Tony asks her, glancing around the lab carefully. He takes a step toward the door. Now that Steve’s been imprinted, he’s anxious to be on his way.

“I’m sure,” Pepper says. “It’ll be fine, Tony. It’s not the first time you’ve had a weekend off.”

“I know. I know that. But still.”

“We’ll be fine. I have your cell number if something goes wrong.”

“What if –”

“Which it _won’t_ ,” she tells him.

Tony sighs. “Okay. Fine. Don’t forget to keep checking in on Sam, he’s on a really demanding engagement.”

“I know.”

“And Jessica’s engagement should be over by midnight, you can manage the wipe, right?”

“Tony.”

“I’m just – and James will get back from his engagement, and he might need to see Bruce. It’s definitely a sexual engagement.”

“I don’t like that engagement,” Pepper says. “I know he’s never come back _hurt_ , I just think it’s a little creepy.”

“Mr. Pierce likes a little resistance, and he’s a personal friend of The Director. He marks, but he doesn’t injure.”

“For now,” Pepper admits. “But what happens when he wants it to go further?”

Tony shakes his head, shrugging into his jacket and heading for the door. “Not going to happen. We don’t send Actives out to be injured or damaged. That’s the deal. Maria won’t allow it.” At least, he hopes so. The sick feeling he gets in his stomach every time they allow an Active out on this kind of engagement is getting to be too much. It’s rare – only friends of the Director are allowed the privilege, and they certainly pay handsomely for it.

But still. He hates knowing his – _the_ – Actives are being hurt.

He gives Pepper a little wave and starts to leave. “Call me if you need me.”

“Have a good weekend, Tony,” she tells him, waving him off.

+++++

When his companion gets to Tony’s secret apartment, Tony is already there waiting for him. He’s wrapped in a big, warm hug, and he wraps his arms around the wide, taller torso and breathes in the scent of him.

“Bike handle okay?” Tony asks.

“Handled fine. No one saw you before I got here?”

Tony shakes his head. “No, I was safe.” His lips are immediately captured by full, pink ones, and he moans into the kiss, letting it go on for a few moments before he reluctantly pulls back.

“I’ve missed you,” Steve says, fake English accent gone now. He smiles down at Tony.

Tony snorts. “You don’t even know how long it’s been since the last time you saw me,” he says rolling his eyes.

“I still missed you,” Steve says, crowding in close for another kiss. This one is a little less heated, more chaste.

“I missed you too, sweetheart,” Tony breathes, once they pull away from the kiss. He presses his forehead to Steve’s collarbone, and for long moments they just hold one another, breathing in their respective scents.

Tony knows what he’s been doing is dangerous, but he can’t help himself. These little… indulgences… are what give him the strength to do his job the rest of the month, to deal with the isolation of life at the Dollhouse.

He’s been living this double life for months – since shortly after Steve came to the Dollhouse. He hadn’t intended it, of course. As much as he defends what they do, the truth is that he doesn’t really understand the mentality of the clients who frequent the Dollhouse for sex. Of course, the Actives are attractive. Beyond attractive. But to Tony, knowing that they had been programmed, that it wasn’t real…

But with Steve, it’s different. He knows it’s dangerous to have this time with Steve, but he can’t help it.

It was Steve’s brain map. When he’d first signed the documentation and contract to work a five-year engagement with the Dollhouse, Tony had been mapping his brain before installing the Active architecture, had been breaking his personality down into its basest components, and he’d been captivated. On the surface, it had looked just like any other brain – memories and synapses and experiences. But the way the different tracts had woven into each other had kept Tony starting at it for hours.

A few months of staring at the map later, he still hadn’t come up with a reason as to why he was so interested in it. It was like looking at music, like looking at joy. So he’d waited until nightfall, and he had invited Steve up from his sleeping pod, for a treatment. He’d quietly imprinted him with a version of his own personality. The memories weren’t there – Steve knew he was a doll, and the components of his personality were the same, but he didn’t have any memories of his life before the Dollhouse. Tony couldn’t access them, but he also didn’t need them – he just wanted to learn more about Steve’s personality, and try to match it with the landscape on the brain map.

Steve had been confused at first, but they’d spoken well into the early morning hours before Tony realized the time and had to wipe him again. It hadn’t brought him any closer to understanding what it was about Steve’s brain waves that had so captivated him, but he had discovered something even more disturbing – over the course of a night, he’d managed to fall in love.

So he’d done it again, and again. He’d secretly imprinted Steve as himself, minus any real details – his pre-Dollhouse memories were in the secure storage banks. The personality was all there, but the faces and names from his former life, how he had come about signing his contract… that was all gone.

Tony thought it would be safer, anyway – more often than not, those who signed a contract with the Dollhouse were running from something painful. Typically, they had done something, or lost something, that had caused them immeasurable pain. He could make that pain go away, and would. But he hadn’t taken the time yet to delve into the personality map code and work it out. That kind of alteration was too delicate to rush. It would go faster if he’d had access to Steve’s memories, but he’d never been allowed the privilege before. And, truthfully, Tony is sort of afraid to find out what happened to this beautiful person to make him choose the Dollhouse.

He’d asked Steve about it, the first time. What he thought about being a doll. If he felt strange, having these feelings and this personality with no memory of a former life to provide context. Steve had shrugged. “I don’t know – I can’t remember.”

He’d smiled, then, twinkling and cheeky, and Tony had tumbled head over heels.

The weekends away were Steve’s idea – because much to Tony’s shock, Steve returned his feelings. They’d hatched a plan – the fake engagements, the hands-off-handler approach, the secret apartment under a fake name. Tony had a pretty easy time breaking into the scheduling and payment section of the Dollhouse’s server and making it look as though his time was being paid for when, in reality, Tony couldn’t afford a Doll for an hour, let alone a weekend.

It’s dangerous. It’s downright _stupid_ , but Tony can’t bring himself to stop. Can’t bring himself to give up these moments.

“Let’s go sit down,” Steve says, heading for the sofa. His hand is wrapped around Tony’s wrist, and he pulls him along through the room.

Tony allows himself to be pulled into Steve’s arms, onto his lap on the furniture, and kissed again.

He sighs as Steve moves over his lips, wet and warm and deep. His tongue probes at the seam, and Tony lets it in, his heart speeding up a little at the feeling.

Steve moans, then, and his hands move down from Tony’s shoulders, down his chest and his waist and then they’re reaching for his fly, and –

“Stop, stop, stop,” Tony gasps, pulling away. It physically hurts him, but he doesn’t have a choice.

“Please. Tony, _please_ ,” Steve says, but he lets go. His hands drop to his sides and he pants hard, trying to catch his breath.

“We can’t. Steve, you know we can’t. It’s not on the table.”

Steve sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I know. I’m sorry. I just – I can’t help it. I want you.”

Tony shakes his head, pacing the room. “You can’t – you can’t know that.”

“You said it yourself, Tony. You said I’m me, I just don’t remember anything. So if I know I love you –”

“You have the same personality, yeah, but you’re not – you don’t have your memories, so you can’t be sure. It’s not right.”

Steve stands, then, and pulls Tony into his arms – Tony wants to resist, but Steve is warm and strong and solid, so he lets himself be held.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, voice quieter. “I shouldn’t push.”

“I love you,” Tony says, pulling away so he can meet Steve’s eyes. “I love you, and I don’t want to hurt you.”

“It wouldn’t hurt, Tony,” Steve says, his voice still gentle.

“It wouldn’t be right. You don’t have all the information, you can’t –”

“I want this, Tony. I want _you_. You know that. You’re just not willing to admit it.”

Tony’s eyes drop to the floor. Steve can’t possibly consent, he knows that. But one of Steve’s personality traits is stubbornness, so it’s not the first time they’ve had this discussion.

“I’ll stop pushing,” Steve says, pulling him close again. “I hope one day you’ll believe me, but I don’t want to fight. We only have so much time together.”

Tony sighs into the embrace, then pulls away and heads for the kitchen, where he’s already started on dinner.

He wants Steve like he’s never wanted anything in his life. But as much as he knows the Actives all consented to becoming dolls, as much as he knows they all willingly signed contracts, he can’t bring himself to act on his desires. He hasn’t programmed Steve to love him, or to want him. But he can’t be sure – really, truly sure – that the programming Tony _has_ given him isn’t the reason Steve wants him back. That Steve, if he knew about his life, if he had his memories, would feel the same way. So Tony resists the temptation, as much as it pains him, because until he can know, one hundred per cent, that Steve actually wants him, he won’t go down that road.

+++++

They finish making dinner together. Tony chops vegetables – inelegantly, of course, because cooking is not one of his many skills – while Steve works on the more complex things, like pasta. They use a simple sauce from a jar, though they add some Italian sausage to it, and they sit down to eat at the kitchen table. Tony had stopped by the store on his way to the apartment, to make sure they had enough food to last them the weekend.

It’s best if neither of them goes outside until it’s time to go back to the house, in case they’re spotted.

Steve takes a sip of wine, leaning back in his chair and chewing thoughtfully.

“So tell me what’s been going on at work lately,” Steve says, giving Tony a little smile. “Have I been on any grand adventures?”

Tony snorts. “You were a drill sergeant not terribly long ago.”

Steve grins. “So I spent the day yelling at people? That’s a grand adventure to you?”

Tony winks at him and takes another bite of his dinner. “Well, certainly not as grand as the jewel-thief fantasy engagement you were on last week.”

Steve blinks. “Man, you get the weirdest clients.”

“Tell me about it,” Tony says with a chuckle. He sighs, and takes a sip of his wine, his face sobering. “I kind of hate it, though.”

“I know.”

“It’s not the work – the brain maps? I love those. The human brain is an incredible place. Nooks and crannies that weave into each other like a tapestry, and I can manipulate the whole thing with nothing but lines of code.” Tony smiles and meets Steve’s eye. “That’s what I fell in love with first. Your brain map. God, it was just gorgeous. Splashes of colour and connections I’ve never seen before.”

“Yeah? You were turned on by my brain?”

Tony ignores the light, teasing tone of Steve’s comment. “The person you are here, this imprint – it’s completely based on that map. The memories aren’t there, but I don’t have access to the memories. They’re in storage, and I can’t get them out.”

“I thought you had access to everything,” Steve says, leaning forward. Tony shrugs again.

“Not what the Director doesn’t want me to access.”

“So what is it you don’t like?”

“It’s not – it doesn’t feel right,” Tony says after a moment. “You all volunteered, I know. But I can’t help feeling that the reality of what I do to you – you couldn’t have understood, at the time.”

“Tony –”

“No, Steve. Some of the things you’ve done… Some of the things the other Actives have done… I don’t think you’d be okay with them, if you knew what they were.”

“But we _did_ volunteer, Tony.”

“I know. I know that. Doesn’t mean I don’t still feel like a glorified pimp.”

Steve studies him for a moment. “So why do you stay?”

Tony stares at his wine glass before tossing his head back and downing what’s left in it with one swallow. He stares at the scuffed table top for a moment before he answers.

“What else would I do?”

“We could go away. You and me. I don’t need my memories – I know enough to know I love you. This imprint is basically me, you said. We could be together.”

“They’d find us,” Tony says. “They’d find us in no time. Even if I took your GPS tag out, they’d find us.”

Steve sighs. “But I hate that you’re unhappy.”

“If it weren’t me, who would it be?” Tony finally asks. “And would they care about protecting you the way I do? Who would keep the dolls safe?”

Steve leans forward and presses a gentle kiss to Tony’s lips.

“I love you,” he says, finally. “That’s not an imprint talking, that’s me. I love you.”

“I know,” Tony says, threading his fingers through Steve’s. “I love you, too.”

They stare at each other for a few moments, and then Tony takes a deep breath and his mouth stretches into a grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Let’s watch a movie.”

“As long as there’s cuddling,” Steve says, matching Tony’s sad smile.

“There will definitely be cuddling.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Are you ever going to tell me how you got this? Or why?”

Tony glances down at his chest, at the blue light illuminating the bedroom. Steve’s fingers are tracing the edge of the glowing circular device in his chest, centered in his sternum.

They’re curled up in bed for the night. Steve is wearing a T-shirt and soft plaid pants, while Tony’s just wearing a pair of grey sweatpants. Steve is curled up on Tony’s shoulder, hand dancing across his chest. It’s not sexual – Tony has told Steve that he won’t take advantage of him like this, because of his imprint, and Steve respects it. It’s just contact for the sake of contact.

“It’s my design, you know,” Tony says, glancing back to Steve’s face.

Steve smiles and leans forward to press a feather-light kiss to the edge of it.

“And it keeps your heart beating,” Steve says, this not being the first time he’s asked about it. But Tony has never told him why it’s in his chest.

“Not exactly. It’s an electromagnet. There’s some, um, shrapnel. In my chest. From a – from a thing,” Tony says, tapping at it a bit with his free hand. “This little baby keeps the shrapnel from making its way into my heart.”

“Why don’t you just have the shrapnel taken out?”

Tony sighs. “Unfortunately, it’s a little more complicated than that. The time it would take to do the surgery? Would be long enough for the shrapnel to kill me. Dr. Banner says this is the only way to keep me alive.”

Steve’s arm around Tony’s chest tightens considerably. “How did you have time to build it?”

Tony shrugs. “Technically, this is the second version. The first one was a bit more rudimentary – Bruce had me hooked up to a car battery for a couple of days while I worked on it.”

Steve blinks at him. “There’s a part of me that feels like you’re pulling my leg because you know you can make me forget this conversation.”

Tony snorts. “As is often the case, life is stranger than fiction.”

Steve snuggles in again, taking a deep breath. “So how did you end up with shrapnel in your chest, anyway?”

“Bomb in the lab,” Tony shrugs.

“What?” Steve’s shock is palpable. “How is that even possible?”

“We had an … intruder. He was trying to steal the imprint tech – he had taken an imprint wedge, too. I was just coming back into the lab with an Active, about to wipe his MMA fighter personality, and we caught him. Rather than face capture, he set off a little bomb he’d brought with him. I’m still not entirely sure he meant to set it off while still in the room, but he did.”

“What happened?”

“Killed him, killed the Active, and I got a chest full of databank pieces.”

“So why was he trying to steal the technology?”

Tony sighs a little. “Hill had me imprint Clint and Sam with advanced investigative and interrogation techniques, computer forensics, the works. Then they, and their handlers, identified the intruder, and traced him back to his employer.”

“Coulson and Romanoff, right?”

“The handlers? Yeah. So, anyway, they found the guy, Zemo. Turns out he was a client of the Dollhouse.”

“So why was he trying to steal the tech? Trying to save himself some money on engagements?”

Tony shakes his head a little. “Worse. We had an Active, Carol, that he’d always engaged. That was the imprint he’d sent Rumlow – his guy, the intruder – to steal, along with the imprinting tech.”

“She’d been released,” Steve guesses.

“And spurned his advances when he found her on the outside,” Tony agrees. “The dolls don’t remember anything about their time in the house, and she didn’t know him at all. Thought he was creepy. So he sent Rumlow to get the tech and the imprint, idea being he’d make her love him that way.”

“Is she okay?”

Tony gives a ghost of a smile. “Yeah, actually. The team figured it out and managed to get her somewhere safe until we could bring in Zemo.”

“What happened to him?”

Tony’s belly runs cold, the way it always does when he thinks of what happened to Zemo. What he’d had to do to him.

“He went to the Attic,” Tony answers.

Steve doesn’t say anything for a few moments, then he leans in and presses another kiss to the arc reactor in Tony’s chest.

“I’m glad he can’t hurt you anymore. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“I love you,” Tony says, kissing Steve’s temple.

“I love you, too, Tony.”

+++++

In the morning, Tony wakes up wrapped in Steve’s arms. Steve is wide awake and watching Tony with a gentle smile on his face.

“Hey, you,” Steve says, leaning forward enough to kiss the tip of Tony’s nose. Tony wrinkles it and pulls back, shooting a mock glare toward Steve.

“How long have you been up?” Tony asks.

“Not long,” Steve says with a shrug, but Tony feels like maybe that’s not the truth.

“So,” Tony says, shifting a little to wrap himself around Steve, curling into the warmth of his hard body. “What do we want to do today?”

“Tell me more about the handlers. I only know Fury, and he’s a bit … gruff.”

Tony snickers a little and stretches. “That’s one word for it.”

“So tell me about the others.”

“So, you’ve sort of had Coulson as a temp handler before Fury was hired.”

“Right. He’s very professional.”

“He’s ridiculous. He’s the only handler that always wears a suit. But he’s also, I think, the handler that knows most of the Dollhouse’s secrets. I think he might even know who the Director is.”

“Really?”

“Even Maria doesn’t know that. Or so she says. But I think Coulson might. Just because Coulson knows everything.”

“Does he know about this place? About us?” Steve’s voice warbles with trepidation – Tony doesn’t blame him. If anyone were to tell Hill about this apartment, about how Tony spends his weekends off, about the fake engagement parameters… Tony would be off to the Attic. He’s sure of it.

“If he does, he’s not saying anything.”

“Why? Are you friends?”

Tony snorts. “I don’t think Coulson has friends. Coulson just collects secrets. I think, if he knows, that’s why he hasn’t told Hill. He’s waiting to see how it plays out, or he’s waiting to use it.”

“Sounds ominous.”

“It’s not, really. Coulson’s one of the good ones. Maybe he just… doesn’t see the harm.”

“He knows you need this,” Steve suggests. “Need us. To get away from that place, to be with someone who loves you.”

Tony feels a light blush stain his cheeks with heat.

“What about the other ones?” Steve asks, changing the subject with a quick squeeze to Tony’s shoulders.

“Natasha is terrifying. She’s Sam’s handler. I think Sam might be the safest Active in the house.”

“What’s so terrifying about her?”

“She has skills that – most of our handlers are former law enforcement, of some kind. The Dollhouse pays better, and Hill recruits the best of the best – the ones with enough moral grey area to stomach what we do, of course.”

“You’re not grey,” Steve interjects.

Tony glares at him from under his eyelashes at the interruption, then continues on. “For example, Fury came from the CIA. Coulson, I think, was NSA. Definitely covert ops military at some point. I don’t know where Natasha came from. I’ve actually mapped her brain for a few different skills to complete some imprints, and I honestly don’t know how one person can pick up those kinds of skills.”

“What about her, as a person?”

Tony shrugs. “She doesn’t let it slip. I don’t know anything about her. I know she’s scary, and that she’s fiercely protective of her Active – of the whole house, really. And that she makes a mean bundt cake.”

“Who else?”

Tony shrugs. “Melinda is almost as scary as Natasha. Sharon is, I think, one of the smarter handlers. She’s more than capable. Mack is huge, but he’s a bit of a fluffy puppy. Then there’s Luke, and Sousa, and Ward.”

“You don’t like him,” Steve says. It’s not really a question. “I can tell by the way you say his name.”

“Grant Ward? No. I don’t. I don’t trust him.”

“Do you think he knows about us?”

“No, no. He would have reported it by now, because he doesn’t like me either. I don’t trust him to have his Active’s best interests at heart. Most of the handlers, if not treating the Actives like people, treat them as pets. Grant treats them more like… toys.”

“That doesn’t seem right.”

Tony shrugs. “I don’t get to pick who they hire.”

“You always say Hill seems to care about our well-being,” Steve argues. “Why would she hire someone like that?”

“I don’t think she did,” Tony admits. “I think his hiring came from the Director.”

“Does he know who the Director is?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. He says he doesn’t.”

“Has he ever hurt a doll?”

Tony shakes his head. “Not that I know of. I just don’t trust him. His Active, James, has a lot of rough engagements.”

“Rough?”

“Let’s just say they dance on the line of ‘consent.’”

Steve’s eyebrows furrow. Tony puts up a hand placatingly to forestall any comment. “Don’t get me wrong. He’s just like any other Active – we never put them in a situation they don’t enjoy. But there’s a repeat client. Mr. Pierce. He engages James at least a couple times a month. I think he’s a personal friend of the Director. The imprint is very specific. James is supposed to fight the client’s advances. It’s a game, to him – the imprint is playing at it, it’s all in fun, but the client’s been requesting evolutions to it. I’m worried that he’s going to ask that one day, the fight be real.”

Steve stares at him. “You would do that?”

“Not if I have a choice,” Tony says bitterly. “But Hill might not give me that choice.”

“So what does that have to do with Ward?”

“He doesn’t care. I told him my concerns, I told him he should keep an eye on James, that the engagements were getting rougher, he’s started to come back with bruises. Ward shrugged it off. Said the client paid, fair and square, and I needed to shut up and do my ‘fucking job.’”

“Did you report him? Can you?”

Tony shakes his head. “I talked to Hill. She said her directives on the matter are clear – the client pays a substantial fee, as well as the ‘high-risk’ subsidy.”

“But what about James? It’s not fair that he’s being hurt.”

Tony shakes his head. “I know. But there’s nothing I can do to help him, except to make sure his imprint likes it. That it’s a kink. That he’s not afraid.”

Steve sighs. “It just sounds … so sad.”

“Well. We do what we have to do, don’t we?” Tony says, glancing up at him.

+++++

They spend the rest of the weekend talking, cuddling, sometimes laughing. Always touching. Tony touches Steve every moment he has the opportunity – he knows that soon enough, it will be over. They talk late into the night again, and play chess and watch movies on Sunday. They have dinner one more time before it’s time to end the engagement.

“Why can’t we just run, again?” Steve asks. They’re at the door, Steve is getting ready to leave. He presses another kiss to Tony’s lips, hard and fast. “Just get away and be together?”

“You know we can’t.”

“I just wish we had more time,” Steve says, pecking kisses across Tony’s brow. Tony shivers, hands gripping Steve’s waist too tight.

“I know. But it’s better for you. You won’t remember this part. I have to – I have to watch you not know me.”

“I don’t understand how I can forget you. Ever. It doesn’t make any sense. You’re – I love you. You’re everything. How can I go back there and not know you?”

“The tech is solid, sweetheart. You won’t miss a day. Next month, you’ll come back here, and it will feel like you just left.”

“But what about you?” Steve cups Tony’s cheek in his hand, blue eyes bright with unshed tears. His voice comes out in a whisper. “How can you stand it?”

“For you,” Tony says, simply, just before Steve catches his mouth in another kiss. It’s deeper, and goes on a long time – slick lips sliding together, tongues dancing as though to memorize one another’s taste.

“I love you,” Steve says, breaking away at last. “I love you more than anything.”

“I love you, too,” Tony says. “You have to go.”

“I won’t forget,” Steve promises, heading for the door. It closes behind him as Tony watches.

“You will,” he murmurs sadly to himself. He waits a few minutes, then gets to work cleaning the apartment of their presence. He has a service that will come in the morning, but for now he just wants to make sure there’s no evidence of them, specifically. Just in case.

Then he heads back to the Dollhouse.

+++++

Tony gets there before Steve – Steve knows enough to go back to the staging house, the dummy apartment Tony had set up, and the fake persona of Mr. Bridge in order to keep Fury from getting suspicious.

Tony is prepping the chair when he walks in.

“Mr. Bridge,” Tony says, greeting him with a cheerful voice. He tries to keep the softness from creeping in around his eyes. “How was your weekend?”

“It was lovely, dear boy, thank you for asking,” Steve says, eyes twinkling. “We had a wonderful time.”

“Glad to hear it,” Tony grins. “Would you like a treatment?”

“Oh, very much, thank you.”

“Everything went well?” Tony asks, glancing up at Fury as Steve moves toward the chair.

Fury shrugs. “I spent my weekend in a van, reading a book and glancing at the biofeeds once in awhile.”

“And… so… it was fine?”

“It was fine,” Fury agrees gruffly.

“I told you, Nick. Nothing to worry about.”

“I still don’t like not knowing anything about – the clients have to be vetted, we have to know what the Actives are walking into.” Fury makes a frustrated sound. “I can’t protect him if I don’t have all the information.”

Tony tilts his head, studying him for a moment. “It’s nice, that you think that way. But he was fine.” He turns toward Steve, laying back in the chair. “Weren’t you, Mr. Bridge?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Steve says in his English accent. The corner of his mouth twitches.

Tony punches a few keys on the keypad, then meets Steve’s eye. “This may pinch a bit,” he says seriously.

Steve reaches up, then, and Tony’s heart pounds. He can’t. This is – if Fury notices – what is Steve doing?

The tips of Steve’s fingers ghost across Tony’s chest, right on the rim of the arc reactor. It’s barely a touch, and it’s quick, but it’s an unmistakable movement, and Fury notices.

“What’s that?” Fury asks, eyes narrowing.

“What’s – uh, what’s what?”

“ _That_.” Fury takes a step forward. “He touched you. Why?”

“I don’t – no reason. I’m not sure. I don’t know.” Tony’s eyes flick up to Fury’s face, and he can tell the handler doesn’t believe him. He barrels on anyway.

“There’s a – I don’t know if they briefed you, I have a, a thing. In my chest. He might have seen the light?”

“Mr. Bridge?” Fury turns to Steve, who lies placidly in the chair, a content expression on his face.

“I was hoping to get this treatment out of the way,” Steve says, accent impeccable. “Perhaps we could avoid any further delay?”

Fury glares back and forth between them, then waves his hand dismissively. Tony manages to resist breathing out a sigh of relief – that would only convince Fury there had, in fact, been something he missed. Instead, Tony hits the last of the buttons and the chair does its work, wiping the imprint from Steve’s brain and leaving him innocent and relaxed.

“Did I fall asleep?” he asks, staring up at Tony. Tony tries not to think of the expression as ‘adoring,’ but it’s the first word that comes to mind.

“For a little while,” he says back, giving Steve a gentle smile.

“Shall I go now?”

“If you like,” Tony answers. Steve gets up and leaves the room, heading for the stairs. He’ll move down to the lower level almost automatically, where he can shower or eat or paint.

Fury turns and stares at Tony. “You wanna explain that?”

Tony blinks at him, and raises his palms in supplication. “I got nothing. The dolls are weird sometimes.”

Fury glares for a moment more before wheeling around and leaving the lab with a sigh.

Tony slumps against the wall, fingers tingling from the adrenaline of almost getting caught.

God, he needs to stop this.


	6. Chapter 6

Time marches on. Tony keeps his head down and does his job – he imprints Thor as a Zumba instructor and sends him off, bouncing cheerily, with a scowling Sharon. Jan becomes an expert etymologist, and Sousa takes her for her engagement, which is, inexplicably, a romantic engagement. With a client who is not an etymologist.

Tony tries not to think too hard about that one. He doesn’t really understand rich people at all.

Tony also finishes the remote wipe tech the Director had insisted on. The range is nowhere near what he’d wanted, but Tony can’t get it there anyway until he works on the targeting system. He has created a small, handheld device to do the remote wiping, rather than the bulky, time-intensive program they’d had at their disposal until now. The design should give a 200-yard radius, which is also better than they’d had before. As much as he doesn’t think the tech is safe, he still feels a sense of accomplishment.

He hopes it’s enough to satisfy the Director – for now, anyway. He sends the prototype up to Hill and hopes they don’t ever use it.

Clint and Pietro go out together for a joint sexual submissive engagement, and Tony boggles at the probable price tag on that one. Coulson and Luke both roll their eyes at him when he comments on the cost.

He sends Steve out just the once, for a Saturday night, 24 hour engagement, the weekend after their… indiscretion. It’s a romantic engagement, but fairly vanilla. The imprint is a romantic frat boy with a heart of gold, off to seduce a literature professor into giving him a better grade. Steve – or, rather, ‘Devin,’ and doesn’t that make Tony want to roll his eyes – drags Fury off while chattering about keggers and football.

Tony does not resist the urge to snicker at Fury’s pained expression.

+++++

Steve comes back alone. Fury is in the hallway, having ushered Steve in for his ‘treatment,’ but he’s already headed back toward the elevator.

“I cannot take any more of him,” Fury says, not turning around. “He’s your problem now.”

Tony grins. “Hi, there, Devin. How was your night?”

“Oh, fuck, dude, it was so sick. My lit prof is, like, so fucking hot. Like a serious fucking hot chick. And she’s a fucking nympho, dude, it was totally off the hook!”

Tony rolls his eyes. He hates this imprint. Just so, so much.

“Right. Well, take a seat, there, slugger, and you can go get back to your – I don’t know, Ultimate Frisbee league?”

“Whatevs, Bro-ski. This treatment is going to be so _wicked_. Like, the _shizznit_!”

Tony makes a face, even as ‘Devin’ sprawls out in the chair. It starts to recline automatically, and ‘Devin’ grins up at him. Tony taps the last few buttons, and the chair lights up, wiping ‘Devin’ from existence for the time being; it leaves only Steve in its wake. It's a marked improvement.

“Did I fall asleep?” Steve’s voice is soft and light.

“For a little while,” Tony answers by rote.

“Shall I go now?”

“If you like.”

“Thank you,” Steve says, standing up and stretching.

Tony watches him go, wishing he didn’t have to wait several more weeks to see _his_ Steve again.

Steve turns, just as he hits the threshold of the lab. He gives Tony a small smile.

“I think I had more fun last weekend,” he says, and Tony feels the bottom drop out of his stomach.

+++++

The dolls don’t remember anything. The technology wipes their personalities, but it also blocks the formation of memories. When they’re in their doll state, they know enough about the house to know their way around – they know the staff, they know Dr. Banner and Scott and the other counsellors, and they know where to go for food and for showers and for sleeping. They know each other’s names, but they have no memories of interacting with the other dolls. They don’t form relationships, they don’t form habits, and they don’t remember their engagements.

Which is why Tony is maybe having a little bit of a panic attack about Steve.

The dolls aren’t supposed to remember anything. There are theories, but Tony had always chalked them up to paranoia. Theories of how the human brain is full of mystery, and not every brain is wired the same, and some of those brains could support a composite event – where personalities could layer over one another, undifferentiated. Tony’s never really believed in it. And the evidence had continued to support Tony’s stand over the years – no doll had ever composited. No doll had ever _remembered_ anything.

_I think I had more fun last weekend._

What was that supposed to mean, anyway? Does Steve remember their weekend at the apartment? Does he remember his weekend with Professor Lecherous?

Tony rejects it out of hand. Steve can’t remember any of those things, because the wiping tech _works_. The brain is rewired, and all those memories are wiped clean, scrubbed out entirely, within seconds of sitting in his chair.

They have to be.

Tony paces the floor of the lab, fingers drumming nervously on the arc reactor in his chest.

What if Steve _is_ remembering? What would that even mean?

He feels the blood drain from his face.

What if someone found out?

Fury, or Hill, or even Coulson. It doesn’t matter who. If anyone finds out, if there’s even a chance it could be true, that Steve’s compositing, forming memories – it would be the Attic for sure.

Tony won’t allow it.

+++++

He keeps a close eye on Steve in the following weeks, but nothing seems amiss. Steve continues to go on engagements, and doesn’t make any further odd comments that would get either of them in trouble. Tony does his job, feeling like he’s walking on shattered glass most of the time, like Fury or Coulson or even Hill is watching his every move.

He’s jumpy, and he knows it, but when Pepper asks him if everything is okay, he lies and tells her he’s just got a migraine. He’s prone to them, so she doesn’t question it further, but he does see her glancing at him once in awhile, worry pricking little wrinkles into the otherwise smooth skin of her pale forehead.

Bruce checks in on him a couple of times, then. Asks if Tony’s been taking the migraine meds he had suggested, asks if Tony’s been using the aromatherapy oils, too. Tony rolls his eyes and offers Bruce a beer, and they sit and drink while watching the Actives roam the floor below, chatting idly about some new tech the research floors above ground are working on, and the obvious problems with it that no one up there seems to have figured out.

There’s no one in the house who can talk science with him the way Bruce can. Pepper tries, but she doesn’t see the art in the scans, in the imprint maps. She sees only function, where Tony gets lost in the form.

The days drag on, until it’s Tony’s weekend off again. And he knows it’s stupid, he knows that Steve’s odd comment, the chance that Steve is remembering anything at all means they should be more careful, means Tony should act like the genius he is and stop taking risks with both their safety.

But he can’t help it. He’s in love.

So they do the cloak and dagger routine again; Mr. Bridge leaves the Dollhouse with Fury following from a distance, and they rendezvous back at the apartment.

They greet each other with kisses, with greedy touches. Tony worries when Steve’s desperation matches his own.

“I feel like I haven’t seen you in so long,” Steve tells him.

Oh, God. Steve shouldn’t feel like any time has passed at all, let alone a measurable amount.

At dinner, Tony asks him.

“Do you ever – this is a weird question. But a couple of weeks ago, you said something after a wipe. Something that made me think – do you have memories? Of the house? Of here? Of other engagements?”

Steve blinks at him for a moment, and Tony feels his skin prickle with the relief. Of course, it was stupid to –

“Yeah.”

Fuck.

“Just – flashes. I remember… little things. Like something from an English Literature class I don’t remember taking. I remember… a figure skating competition.”

“Oh, God. Do you – do you remember anything about you? About your life before the Dollhouse?”

“No. There’s nothing there.”

“Fuck. Steve – Steve, you have to hide it. You have to – we have to figure out what’s going on. Self-awareness is dangerous in this place.”

Steve sighs. “I know, Tony. But I don’t think I can stop it.”

Tony lets his face rest in his hands, elbows propped on the table. “When did it start?” His voice is a little muffled by his palms.

Steve shrugs. “I’m not sure. I’m not even sure – until you asked, I wasn’t even sure it was real. I don’t think I should know how to use a gun, but I can disassemble an AK-47 in 12 seconds flat. You gave me that, didn’t you?”

Tony nods miserably. “Two engagements ago.”

“What does it mean?”

Tony looks up at him. “It means you’re compositing.”

“Will it stop?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t – honestly, I didn’t think it could happen. It’s not supposed to happen. There were theories, but I didn’t believe them.”

The corner of Steve’s mouth quirks up in a half-smile, but he doesn’t say anything more.

“I’ll have to look at your scans. I’ll have to figure out what’s going on, and we have to make it stop, Steve. If they find out – if they catch you, it’ll be the Attic.”

“They won’t find out,” Steve argues. “I’ve been hiding it so far.”

“It’s starting small, you said yourself you only remember flashes. What if you remember something big? What if you can’t help but react? Steve, the Attic isn’t a joke. It’s not temporary. No one ever comes back from the Attic.”

“What about the contract term?” Steve asks, mouth pursing, eyebrows turning down. “You said I signed a term for five years, and then they’d let me go home.”

Tony looks at him from the side of his eyes. “Not if you have to go to the Attic. It’s where they put the broken ones, Steve, and if you’re broken, there’s no going home.”

“How can they do that? Won’t someone miss me?”

Tony shakes his head. “There’s a lot of money in the Dollhouse, Steve. They can do whatever they want.”

They sit in silence for a long time.

+++++

“I feel like there’s something I’m supposed to remember, but I can’t,” Steve says, later that night when they’re curled up in bed. Tony’s got Steve wrapped up in his arms, and he presses a kiss to the back of Steve’s neck in the dark.

Something about the night makes talking about this seem easier.

“You’re not supposed to remember _anything_ , sweetheart.”

“No, I mean – how long has James been a doll?”

Tony blinks in confusion. “James? What does James have to do with anything?”

Steve lets out a sigh, and it sounds like it’s bordering on frustration. Not at Tony – it sounds like Steve is frustrated with himself, with his own failures when it comes to memory.

“I don’t know. There’s something about him. He looks familiar, in some way. I don’t know why.”

“Maybe from an engagement you two worked together?”

“Does that happen often?”

“Not as often as you might think. Two Actives on an engagement is usually more than a client is willing to spend in one shot. Even rich people save certain things for special occasions.”

Steve sighs and wriggles deeper into Tony’s hold. “I just wish I knew why this is happening. Why I’m remembering.”

“We’ll figure it out. It’ll be okay, Steve.”

“I love you,” Steve reminds him.

“I love you, too.”

+++++

Time continues to pass. Tony spends idle moments staring at the scan of Steve’s brain. He glances at the scan he had taken after their last weekend together, and at the scan taken when Steve first came to the Dollhouse.

There’s nothing unusual of note. It looks the way an Active’s brain should look after spending time in the Dollhouse. The added architecture, the bright spots indicating contentment, the dark spots indicating a lack of fresh memories.

Well, okay, that’s a little out of the ordinary. There are tiny little black spots, showing some of the ‘flashes’ of memory Steve had been talking about.

Tony pulls up today’s scan. It’s been a few more weeks, and the dark spots have multiplied and grown exponentially. But it doesn’t tell Tony _why_.

Steve has been smiling at him, has the softness around his eyes when he looks at Tony, more and more. Even after a new imprint, he seems to just be comfortable around Tony, in a way that tells Tony he hasn’t forgotten who he is, or where he is.

It’s terrifying.

Fury hasn’t said anything, but Tony thinks, once in awhile, that he’s catching Fury watching Steve a little closer.

Tony knows it’s time. He keys his way into the engagement server, slips in through the back door he built in eight months ago, and finds this weekend’s bookings.

There’s an entry for ‘Mr. Troubled Water’ – full weekend, non-sexual, low-risk engagement. Highly classified.

It’s, of course, him. He’s Mr. Troubled Water. He deletes the entry.

He doesn’t get to have this anymore, and it breaks his heart. But he can’t take the risk.

+++++

At the end of the week, Tony gets ready to leave – alone, this time. He’s in the lab by himself. He’d already briefed Pepper on what to expect from the weekend, and she’d been surprised to find out the Troubled Water engagement had been canceled. Tony had shrugged it off, of course, because Pepper wasn’t supposed to know who Mr. Troubled Water was, and kept his eyes on his computer screen.

“I guess I just find it weird that there’s a whole new engagement, even more private than those ones, you know?”

Tony blinks, and turns to look at her. “What do you mean?”

“The new engagement? It’s on the calendar.”

Tony pops through to the part of the calendar he’s _supposed_ to be able to see, the one he has access to, and stares at the schedule. It’s the same duration as the Troubled Water engagements, and it’s his weekend off – he was going to spend the weekend cleaning out the apartment, with the intention of giving it up entirely, to wipe away the trail of his indiscretions.

There, in bold type, are the letters T.S. He double taps on the notes and reads the instructions left for the handlers. _Romantic engagement, sexual in nature, minimal risk, high-profile, vetted client. Do not engage client. Do not identify client._

There are other notes, and Tony notices they’re all similar to the Troubled Water engagements except for one thing. _Sexual in nature_.

He knows he didn’t put that in. He _knows_ it. He’d _deleted_ the engagement, and it had never been marked down as sexual.

He takes a few deep breaths, trying to make sure his inner panic stays inner, and, in his distracted state, builds advanced ninja skills into the celebrity chef imprint he’s supposed to be working on.

He blinks, and removes them, replacing the code string with a love for puppies. Checks the client specs, sees an allergy note, and changes it to a love for kittens.

Who had booked Steve this weekend? Was it a joke? Was it Hill’s way of telling him she’d known what he was up to?

What if they’d figured out that Steve was starting to composite? He hadn’t really had a chance to speak to Steve in private – there are cameras everywhere. But he’d seen the scans, and he’s sure Steve is remembering more and more; essentially layering imprints over one another.

Or is it all just a coincidence? They’ve had other high-profile, private clients before. It’s not that unusual, as much a Fury detests it.

Tony takes a breath, and turns away from his monitor to start gathering his things.

“I’m done with Daisy’s imprint code,” he tells Pepper. He gestures at the small box of imprints they’ve used over the past couple of days. “Why don’t you go put these other wedges in storage, and I’ll head out?”

“Sure thing, Tony. See you Monday?”

“See you Monday,” he agrees.

She takes the box, and he spends a few moments puttering. He’s dreading that cold, quiet apartment. But it would just look suspicious if he didn’t leave for the weekend.

He shrugs his jacket on, and turns toward the doorway – but it’s already occupied.

Steve is there, out of nowhere, it seems, and then he’s walking toward the chair.

“Steve? You – uh, you’re here.” God, he’s an idiot.

“I came for my treatment.”

“Right, you – but your treatment is later, isn’t it? With Pepper?”

“It’s our weekend, Tony,” Steve says, his voice soft enough to not be overheard by anyone walking by.

Not that there is anyone, but Tony would rather be safe than sorry. He looks around quickly.

“You – uh … you remember that?”

“Of course,” Steve says, and that’s when Tony realizes he’s moved to angle them both away from the security camera in the ceiling, so even if someone were watching they wouldn’t be able to read their lips.

“You already have an engagement,” Tony says dumbly. He knows it’s on the calendar – he saw it himself.

“Well, the computer system thinks I do.”

Tony blinks at him. “What do you mean?”

“You imprinted me with advanced hacking skills a couple weeks ago, Tony.” Steve taps a finger to his temple. “It stuck.”

“You hacked the schedule? How? When? You – how much do you remember?”

“Everything for the last month,” Steve admits. “Can we go? We can talk about this at the apartment.”

Tony doesn’t know what to do. This could be very bad. They could get caught. The instability of the technology is a bad sign. If Steve is compositing, are there others?

His mind is whirling with questions, but Steve just gives him a gentle smile and walks toward the chair. He sits down, and lets it recline.

“Don’t imprint me,” he says. “This is just for the cameras. I just want to be myself this weekend.”

Tony blinks, then gets his shit together and moves over toward the keypad. He cues up a diagnostic function, and runs it. It makes it look as though the chair is giving Steve an imprint – enough to fool the cameras.

Steve stands up and grins, just as Fury walks in to take him for his engagement.

“And who are we today?” Fury asks him, his tone as cheerful as Fury’s tone gets – which is to say, not at all.

“Matt Spencer,” Steve announces, licking his lips. “Nice to meet you.” The shift is subtle. Steve’s hip cocks out to the side, his eyelashes flutter, and his bottom lip pouts out flirtatiously. Instantly, he’s the picture of sensuality – like sex bottled up and sold at market.

“Yeah, yeah, stud. Let’s get you to your ride.” Fury turns and leads Steve out – just as Steve is about to leave the room, he glances back and winks at Tony.

 _Okay_ , Tony thinks. _Message received._


	7. Chapter 7

Tony waits for a few minutes before he leaves, and heads straight for the apartment. He needs answers to his questions. He doesn’t have time to stop for groceries – they can order take out.

He paces the kitchen while he waits for Steve to make his roundabout way to the building, and come up the back stairs like usual.

When he opens the door, Steve whirls him around, shoves the door closed and presses Tony against it, and greets him with a hot, hungry kiss.

“You didn’t imprint me,” Steve murmurs against Tony’s lips, and Tony gasps. They have to talk, there’s so much to – he doesn’t care, Steve’s lips feel like manna from heaven.

“No,” he moans back. “I didn’t.”

“Which means I’m just me, Tony. There’s no programming here. I’m a person. I can make my own decisions –”

Steve pulls away suddenly, so Tony can see his eyes. They’re glinting with intent, with certainty.

“I can consent,” he says, voice thick with desire. “I want you, Tony. Please, please let me have you.”

Tony feels he should argue. Should tell Steve no. But he’s powerless to say it. He blinks, feels his heart pound, and then nods, barely, and Steve is on him again, mouth sliding slickly against his own. Steve’s tongue licks at the seam of Tony’s lips, and he parts them, allows it entry, and moans around it as it expertly slips into his mouth and tastes every part of him.

The kiss goes on for ages, and Steve never seems to tire, just kissing and kissing and kissing, big hands roaming over his neck, his shoulders, his biceps, until they cradle Tony’s jaw, his head, and hold him there so that Steve can plunder his mouth unhindered.

He thinks he might pass out from lack of oxygen, and he welcomes the dark if it means this kiss will never end – but then Steve pulls back, just enough so that they’re breathing the same air, panting and gasping.

Steve rolls his forehead against Tony’s, pressing tiny kisses along his jaw, along the edge of his goatee, up to his temple. Tony hears a high-pitched, pleading noise, and realizes it’s him, and doesn’t give a fuck.

“What’s your fantasy?” Steve murmurs, his voice a seductive rumble. “What would you like me to do for you? I can do anything, Tony. I have all these people in my head, all these experiences. I could beg you. Do you want me to beg you? Please?”

The last word is breathy, is soft, and Tony shudders.

Steve’s breathy voice begging is gorgeous, but he doesn’t actually want that from him. He doesn’t want Devin or Victor or Chad. He finally gets to have Steve, for real, and he intends to make every moment as genuine as possible.

“Just you,” he whispers, voice still strained and out of breath. “Steve, sweetheart, I just want you.” Steve surges forward and captures him in another kiss. Tony moans into it, fingers burrowing into the fabric of Steve’s shirt.

Then the world tilts, and he realizes Steve has hoisted him up, and he automatically wraps his legs around Steve’s waist for balance. Steve doesn’t break the kiss, barely even changes its tempo, as he carries Tony – and god, speaking of fantasies – down the hall and through to the bedroom.

Steve presses him down into the mattress on the bed, larger body covering his, hands roaming and pushing at clothes. Steve’s sure hands make short work of Tony’s T-shirt and jeans, and then he’s pulling at his own shirt, pushing his own pants down, until they’re skin to skin, naked from head to toe.

Tony’s heart is pounding, his breath frantic as he tries to calm himself down, but he can’t. Steve’s skin is hot and smooth, his nipples little pebbles of pink that Tony wants to taste.

He pulls back from the kiss, taking in a great gulp of air, and pushes at Steve’s shoulders. Steve immediately backs off, and Tony takes advantage of the leverage to roll them, and then he straddles Steve’s hips, grinding his hips down so that their hard cocks slide together.

Steve lets out a cry, hands gripping at Tony’s biceps and head thrown back. Tony nips at his jaw, his throat, his collar bone, chasing each bite with a soft kiss to sooth the skin. He makes his way to one of those little pink nipples and pulls it into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it before sucking it and scraping at it with his teeth.

“Oh, god, Tony,” Steve gasps, hips thrusting up in no discernable rhythm. His fingers dig into Tony’s hair, big, warm hands cradling Tony’s skull.

“You’re so gorgeous, sweetheart,” Tony says against his skin, mouth trailing across firm pecs to the other nipple. He lavishes the same treatment on this one, until Steve’s hands are trembling, and then he starts nipping and kissing his way down Steve’s perfect abs, to the little dip of his navel, to the sparse trail of hair that guides the way to his gorgeous cock.

Tony veers off to the side, biting at Steve’s hip bone, then works his way to inner thigh, crease of groin, and tongues at his sac.

Steve is moaning outright now, body writhing on the bed, so Tony presses hot, wet kisses up the length of his shaft, until he reaches the leaking slit at the head, and sucks it into his mouth.

God, even his pre-come tastes sweet. Tony moans and pushes down, taking Steve slowly all the way to the back of his throat. He bobs up and down a few times, tongue swirling and flicking at the tip, at the slit, at the ridge around the head.

Then Steve’s hands are back in his hair, gripping and tugging and Tony finds himself hauled off, mouth coming free with a slick pop, and pulled bodily up so that he’s face-to-face with Steve again.

Steve kisses him fiercely, ignoring the mournful sound Tony makes at the loss of his cock. He pulls back and rolls them again, and the weight of him has Tony grinding his hips up, trying to get more friction.

“I need to touch you,” Steve moans. “I can’t go another minute not touching you.”

Steve is frantic, then, mouth and hands exploring Tony’s body, touching and tasting every inch of bare skin. Tony gasps and keens with every sensitive spot, and Steve just keeps moving, as though he’s cataloguing every erogenous zone he can find – some Tony didn’t even know he had before now. His lips skitter over the edge of the arc reactor, eyes an impossible colour as they reflect the pale blue light.

When Steve finally circles back around to Tony’s erection, he takes it all the way down to the root in one go, throat spasming around the head. Tony cries out, can’t stop his hips from bucking up. Steve just rides the wave of motion, bobbing up and then right back down again. He pulls up and licks at the head, sucking lightly at Tony’s skin, and then continues the actions, bobbing down and deep-throating him before pulling up to suck at the tip.

“Fuck, Steve,” Tony rasps, voice cracking with the strain. He hadn’t allowed himself to think about sex with Steve – not when he couldn’t have it. But now, he’s reaping the benefits of several lifetimes worth of sexual expertise, and he’s not sure he’ll survive the experience.

“Please, please, please,” he whines. He’s not sure what he’s pleading for, not sure what Steve could do for him at this point that could be better than what he’s feeling right now.

Steve pulls back, breathing deeply, and peppers kisses across Tony’s shivering belly. He’s not built like Steve – Steve is built like a sex god and a linebacker and a swimmer all at once, each muscle defined in perfect proportion, bulging and dipping at all the right spots. Tony’s muscle definition is more wiry, compact. But Steve still sips at his skin as though there could be nothing finer.

Steve pulls back, rather suddenly. He’s breathing hard, his skin is flushed, and his eyes are bright. Tony pushes himself on his elbows, trying to regain his composure. “Are you okay?” he asks Steve after a few moments.

“I just – I just need to calm down,” he says. “I’ve been waiting so long. I don’t want to rush it.”

Tony reaches out and cups the side of Steve’s face in the palm of his hand. “I’m right here, Steve.”

Steve leans in again, and this time the kiss is slow and languorous. He pulls away with a gentle sound, then nudges at Tony’s shoulder. He takes the hint and rolls onto his front, leaning up into the soft caresses and touches of Steve’s hands trailing across his skin.

Tony moans a little when Steve’s hand brushes down his flank, along his thigh, then back up along his inner thigh. He can’t help but grind his hips down into the mattress, trying to get friction and pressure on his cock.

Steve chuckles low in his throat, strong hands digging into the muscles of Tony’s back before he nudges Tony’s legs apart and kneels down between them.

“God, Tony, you’re gorgeous,” he breathes, hands kneading the globes of Tony’s ass, thumbs pressing into the crease of his thighs. Tony feels himself blush, he can’t help it. For someone like Steve, someone who looks like every fantasy he’s ever had all put together, to think he’s gorgeous – it doesn’t make sense. But Steve’s voice is sincere, and Tony’s never known him to lie.

Then Steve’s hands push his cheeks apart, and Tony shivers at the slight puff of air that ghosts over his crease, crying out when Steve leans forward and presses his mouth there.

He kisses the puckered rim, lips hot and wet, and Tony feels electric sparks through his spine, down to his toes. Steve is gentle, his tongue lapping at the skin, hot and wet and smooth as it encourages him to relax, to open. Tony whines and writhes when the tip of that tongue slips into him, just a little. Steve answers the response with a low moan and by pressing his tongue in deeper, which has Tony scrabbling for purchase, fingers digging into the bed clothes as he tries to hold still, tries to hold on. He feels like he might shatter apart from the pleasure.

Steve doesn’t let up – he keeps kissing and licking and sucking at the furled skin, until every time Tony exhales, it comes out as a cry. He might be begging, he doesn’t know. He’s not even sure he’s speaking out loud, or if he’s just moaning incoherently. Steve’s skilled tongue dives deeper and deeper into him, the slick sounds and light rasp of stubble sending sparks straight to the root of Tony’s cock.

“Tony,” Steve moans, finally ending the beautiful torture and kissing his way up Tony’s spine. He presses his lips to each knob, hands kneading muscles as he works his way up, spreading himself out over Tony’s body, nuzzling into Tony’s hair behind his ear. “Tony, I want you.”

“God, Steve, you have me,” he moans, hitching his hips up to grind against Steve’s erection.

Steve pulls away, kneeling up and shifting to the side. He pushes at Tony’s shoulder, pulling him and rolling him, so that Tony’s on his back. His cock throbs and leaks a bead of slick pre-come at the sight of Steve, face flushed pink, glistening with sweat. His eyes are dilated with lust, and the length of his erection is red and straining.

Steve swings his leg over Tony’s hip, straddling him again, and then reaches back behind himself, one hand on Tony’s chest to hold his balance. Tony moans deliriously when Steve’s hand comes back around, holding a glistening plug.

“Oh, fuck, Steve, have you had that in the whole time?”

“Since before I got here,” Steve pants, grinning devilishly. “I wanted to be ready.”

The idea that Steve had prepared himself, had opened and stretched and inserted a plug to keep himself open has Tony’s hands spasming and clenching down on his hips. Steve doesn’t seem to mind, rolling forward before reaching down and curling his fingers around Tony’s cock, then shifting back, pushing down until the thick head slips past the hot, tight, slick rim. Steve doesn’t stop, he just keeps pushing down, pulling Tony into his body until he’s resting on Tony’s pelvis, head tipped back and mouth open in rapture as he pushes down, taking Tony’s cock all the way to the base.

They still, and Tony lets the sensations wash over him – he soaks in the weight of Steve on his hips, the hot, trembling flesh of his inner thighs, the slick, tight, impossible heat of him around Tony’s erection.

Steve leans forward, and their eyes meet again. Tony reaches up and places his hands on Steve’s hips – not gripping, just holding him. Steve takes one of Tony’s hands in his and pulls it up so he can brush kisses across Tony’s knuckles, and it makes him shiver. He cups Steve’s face with his hand, and Steve gives him a gentle smile. In the next instant, it turns wicked, and Steve rolls his hips, powerful thighs tensing as he lifts himself up, only to sink down again.

A low moan rumbles out of Steve’s chest, and he lifts and sinks again, grinding his hips down this time. Tony’s belly heats at the display of strength – Steve’s controlled, perfect movements above him resemble those of a dancer. Then Steve is leaning forward again, back bowing, flexible spine curving so he can lean down and press his lips to Tony’s. Tony surges up into the kiss, every nerve on fire.

“I love you,” Steve pants against his lips, his hips speeding up, sinking down faster and harder. Tony thrusts up to meet him on every beat, the slick sounds of their bodies moving together in the room a chorus with their moans and gasps.

“I love you, too,” Tony agrees before he surges up, pushes forward and rolls them. He grips the backs of Steve’s knees in his palms and presses them up and out, opening Steve’s body to him and thrusting forward, grinding in and shifting his angle to try and hit Steve’s prostate. Steve cries out, cock jerking and pre-come spurting out and pooling in his navel, and Tony wants to cry, it looks so gorgeous. He settles for thrusting again and again, leaning forward enough so that Steve’s cock is trapped between their bellies.

“Oh, God, Tony,” Steve cries, nails scraping and scratching at Tony’s back and shoulders, as though he’s trying to pull Tony even further into his body.

“You feel so good, sweetheart,” Tony pants, peppering kisses across Steve’s chest, over his collar bones, into his throat. Steve tilts his chin up to give Tony better access.

Steve meets him thrust for thrust, clenching his hole when Tony pulls back, relaxing it so it’s open and hot and welcoming for each push in. Tony knows he won’t last much longer – Steve is too beautiful, his body too perfect. Each sensation piles on top of the next. His hair is flopping into his eyes, he can feel his balls drawing in tight as he gets closer and closer to his climax.

He wants Steve to come with him, wants to see Steve come on his cock in this moment more than he’s ever wanted anything, so he tilts back, rests on his knees and holds onto Steve’s hip with one hand, slamming in and grinding, circling his hips to try and touch every nerve ending Steve has, and reaches with his other hand to curl his fingers around Steve’s leaking cock, the pre-come making his hand slide easy when he starts stroking with a tight fist.

It only takes a few pumps, a few deep thrusts into him, and then Steve is crying out, gasping and keening as come shoots from his cock, splattering up his chest and over his chin, streaks of white fluid painting his body while his ass clenches and tightens around Tony inside him, and Tony is gone. His vision goes white as he careens over the edge, hips jerking and stuttering as he slams in as deep as he can go. He empties himself into Steve, still moving in and out in the even-slicker channel, his come making the way slippery and wet. Steve is still crying out, still coming, even, and it draws Tony’s orgasm out longer. His rhythm is shot, but he keeps moving, keeps chasing that pleasure until he can’t anymore, until his over-sensitive cock is causing his body to shiver and shake with the aftershocks of his orgasm.

He flops over Steve’s body, draping himself over Steve’s chest while they pant and whisper words of love to each other, trying to catch their breath.

Tony softens and slips out of Steve’s body, eventually, and Steve moans a little as a rush of fluid, of Tony’s come, leaks out of him.

Tony lifts his head enough to press a soft, careful kiss against Steve’s lips. Steve returns the kiss lazily, fingertips brushing lightly over Tony’s back and arms, just barely caressing skin.

Eventually, Tony has to move. He rolls to the side, reaches for the blankets and pulls them up to cover them both – he doesn’t care about the mess, about their come leaking off and out of Steve’s body. He just wants to stay in this moment forever.

“I love you,” he whispers into Steve’s shoulder, pressing a kiss there to seal the words in.

“I love you,” Steve answers, rolling onto his side and wrapping his arms around Tony.

They lay there for a long time, just holding one another.

“I want to have this forever,” Tony admits, his voice barely above a whisper. He’s not used to getting what he wants. He’s not used to any of this. All he knows is that he wants Steve forever, all the time. They can’t keep stealing weekends like this. It isn’t safe for either of them. “We can’t keep doing this. I love you, Steve, but we’re going to get caught. This will put us both in the Attic.”

“I won’t live without you, Tony. I can’t.”

Tony looks into his eyes, searching there. He can read the conviction, the certainty in Steve’s eyes.

“Well, then,” he finally says after a moment. “I guess we need to find a way to get us both away from the Dollhouse. For good.”

Steve stares at him, then surges forward for another kiss.


	8. Chapter 8

“We have one month,” Tony says in the morning. “The easiest way to do this, the best way to avoid getting caught, is to continue as normal. We need time to plan, so we get a month.”

“And your next weekend off, we run?” Steve says, pressing a kiss to Tony’s shoulder.

“We run,” Tony agrees. “We’ll put you in the scheduling system as one last weekend with Mr. Troubled Water, and we’ll give Fury the slip.”

“What about the GPS tag?” Steve asks, waving a hand at the back of his neck. Tony blinks – he’s not sure he’s ever mentioned the location of the GPS tag to Steve. Steve rolls his eyes. “I’m remembering all my engagements, and all the time in between, remember? I remember being in the room when you explained the tags to Fury.”

Tony shakes his head a little and presses his mouth to Steve’s. “We’ll manage the strip – if we take it out and leave it here in the apartment for the weekend, they won’t notice anything until Sunday night, when you’re supposed to leave.”

“When will we go? Where?”

“I’ll imprint you on the Friday – with your original personality. You’re already compositing, so you should retain all your memories, you’ll just know more about your life before the Dollhouse. They’ll think I’m using the regular imprint.”

“Where will we go?” Steve asks again.

Tony shrugs. “I don’t know yet. I have to go through some assets, figure out where we can go that they can’t find us.”

“Some place warm,” Steve says, grinning. “I hate being cold.”

Tony snorts. “How would you even know that?” he says, tone cheeky.

Steve nips at Tony’s neck in retaliation. “You know, we don’t have to be back at the house until tomorrow,” he murmurs. “However do you think we’ll fill the time?”

Tony feels his belly clench with desire at the thought. “I can come up with a few ideas,” he says, rolling until he’s lying on top of Steve, flesh pressed against flesh. He can feel Steve’s answering erection against his thigh.

“I’m all ears,” Steve says, reaching up for a kiss.

+++++

They spend some of the weekend planning, but mostly they spend it being together in all the ways Tony hadn’t allowed them to be before now. There’s still a small part at the back of his mind that wonders if he’s not still taking advantage of Steve. Steve is, after all, a composite of many different imprints and the ‘clean slate’ doll state. Without the input of his original personality, though, Tony can’t be fully certain that Steve would want this, would want _him_ , if he’d never become a doll.

But he can’t argue with the fact that Steve is a fully formed personality. While he might not have any memories of his life up to this point, and while he might have his thoughts and feelings influenced by the imprints in his head, he can make his own decisions.

Tony still can’t believe, though, that Steve’s decided on him.

They kiss desperately at the front door of the apartment before Steve has to leave to go back to the Dollhouse. They’ve already lingered longer than they should have, drinking one another in, touching and kissing and caressing. Tony’s tried to commit every moment to memory, because while they have the beginnings of a plan, there’s still no guarantee it will work. The next month will be dangerous, but they have to try.

He’d gone back and forth on it – should they try to do it earlier? But Tony has spent the last several years working at the Dollhouse, and had already tweaked Hill’s suspicions when he began to take one weekend a month off, away from the house. Before that, he hadn’t left the house for a year. He had told Hill he needed the time away, and she’d agreed, but she’d stared at him for a long moment before she nodded her head. If he were to ask for a second weekend off… it would make her wonder. It might make her look more closely at what he’s doing.

It might get him and Steve both sent to the Attic.

He pulls away from Steve’s last kiss, giving him a small smile. “I’ll see you in less than an hour,” he says.

“Too long,” Steve says, pulling Tony into a bone-crushing hug. Tony breathes in the scent of him, trying to commit that to memory, too.

“Sap,” he accuses.

“I love you,” Steve says.

“I love you, too,” Tony says. “Now, get going.”

Steve gives him one more quick kiss, then turns and leaves, closing the door softly behind him. Tony leans forward and rests his forehead against the wood of the door, sucks in a deep breath. They’re taking a real chance here. It’s dangerous. It’s stupid.

And he needs it.

+++++

The first thing Tony does the morning after he gets back to the Dollhouse is pull up Steve’s brain scans again. He had told Steve he was sure he would retain all his memories, current ones included, after being imprinted with his original imprint, but the truth is, he’s not sure. He thinks there’s a pretty good chance, but he needs more information.

He idly wonders what Steve’s last name is. All the dolls have generic, ordinary first names only. Hill had told them it was the Director’s preference, that the Actives keep their names. She’d said he thought it was better for them, that even though they were losing their fundamental selves for a few years, at least they would still have their names.

Tony isn’t sure how he feels about it. He thinks maybe if he had the choice, he would prefer not to keep his name. That maybe the Director lets them keep their names as a way of showing dominance. That if he were a doll, if he went back to himself later, he wouldn’t want that memory.

Of course, the dolls don’t remember their time in the house once they’re released from service, but still.

He pores over Steve’s brain scans, over files, over research papers from some of the theorists upstairs, but nothing seems to make sense as to why Steve would be compositing. He’s looking at old scans and new ones. He knows it’s futile – he’s already stared at the scans, trying to find an answer. Nothing has made sense so far.

Pepper comes into the lab behind him, pulling her long hair into a ponytail at the base of her neck. “What do we have on the docket today?” she asks.

Tony waves toward the computer terminal disinterestedly.

“Three or four engagements before lunch,” he says. “I haven’t read the parameters yet.”

Pepper pulls up the schedule and glances over it. “James, Clint, Janet and Wanda,” she reads. “James is going back to Mr. Pierce again? Already?”

Tony leans back and turns toward her. “I didn’t look. That seems awfully fast.” He pulls up the engagement request and his jaw tightens. There are new requests for the Sasha imprint.

He doesn’t like the look of them.

Pepper shrugs. “I guess Mr. Pierce had a good time, last time.”

Tony furrows his brow. “Is James’ medical file there? How was he after his last engagement?” he asks.

Pepper shakes her head. “It doesn’t say.”

Tony closes down his files and stands up. “I’m going to go see Bruce. I don’t think James is ready for another appointment with Pierce.”

Pepper frowns. “Can we even stop it? Would Hill listen to you?”

Tony shrugs on his way out the door. “I have to try. These people – they’re _people_. If James isn’t in any shape to go to Pierce today, then I’ll do everything I can to keep him from it.”

“They keep sending him. I don’t think they’ll listen.”

“Hill doesn’t want to send him, either,” Tony says. “If I can convince her to make him wait… the Director has to let him heal from the last engagement before he goes back.”

Pepper gives him a sad smile, and he heads down the hall to Bruce’s office.

“Tony,” he greets, patting Daisy on the shoulder as she stands up from the exam table. Bruce turns to her. “Thank you, Daisy. Why don’t you go for a swim?”

“I like to swim,” she agrees, eyes wide and trusting. “It helps me be my best.”

She walks out the door, nodding and smiling a polite greeting at Tony.

“What can I help you with, Tony?”

Tony turns back to Bruce. “They’ve got James scheduled for an engagement with Pierce today,” Tony says, face sour. He glances out the door and sees Steve walk by, and his heart leaps into his throat. Steve doesn’t acknowledge him, and he does his best not to let his feelings show on his face, but he can’t help but notice Steve there. Steve stops to examine a plant outside the door, but Tony suspects he’s listening in on their conversation.

Bruce’s eyes darken.

“Pierce has altered the engagement request,” Tony says, voice tight. “I don’t – I don’t want to send him. What kind of shape was he in last time?”

“Nothing serious,” Bruce admits. “Some bruises, some welts. But just because he’s not doing permanent damage…”

Tony nods. “I’m worried. Pierce wants Sasha to be afraid this time. Not ‘pretending’, not playing a game, but actually afraid. He wants Sasha to go there not knowing what’s going to happen, not knowing that Pierce wants him, wants to hurt him.”

Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose. “It was only a matter of time,” he says.

Tony glances at the doorway, where Steve is still studying the plant. He’s not giving any indication that he’s heard their conversation, but Tony knows he must have.

“I need grounds to keep him off this engagement,” he says. “I need a reason to cancel.”

Bruce looks up sharply at that. “Tony, you can’t interfere. We don’t have any control over the engagements, you know that”

“I have to try,” he insists. “Bruce, it’s not right.”

Bruce sighs. “I know that, Tony. Of course I know that. But they won’t listen to you.”

“I need you to come up with a medical reason. Bruce, it’s important.”

Bruce stares at him for a long moment. “What would you have me say?”

“I don’t care. Migraine, jaundice, diarrhea. Whatever gets him out of this engagement.”

“What if they want someone else instead?”

Tony shakes his head. “Pierce has requested James specifically, and only James, every time. I’ve warned Hill that it’s dangerous to do repeat engagements, that if a client is that set on a particular Active, chances are it’s going to become a problem.”

“And what did she say?”

Tony sighs. “She said the Director was aware of my concerns.”

Bruce blows out a puff of air, chewing on his lower lip thoughtfully. “James _was_ limping earlier today. I think he might have slipped on the stairs.”

“That’s the spirit,” Tony says.

“It would be a bad idea for him to leave the house right now. I should keep an eye on him, keep him off the leg for a few days. But remember, Tony – the Director doesn’t let us decide what’s best for the Actives, no matter how much we fight him on it.”

“Thanks, Bruce,” Tony says, wondering about the depth of feeling in Bruce’s voice. Bruce seems uncharacteristically invested in that comment. “You’re doing the right thing.”

“My only request is that when they send us to the Attic, you get wiped first so I can watch you suffer,” Bruce tells him. Tony grins.

“I promise.”

+++++

Hill is mad, probably, but Tony doesn’t care. He’s not sure what it is about the Sasha engagement that makes his hair stand on end. Several of the dolls have been sent out for dominant-submissive sexual engagements, even Steve. It’s lucrative for the house. They almost never come back injured, and if they do, it’s never serious. Even James’ injuries have been innocuous thus far – bruises and abrasions, but nothing Tony could ever categorize as ‘dangerous.’

But Tony has a bad feeling about Pierce, for some reason, so he doesn’t care if Hill is mad at him or not. The important thing is that James’ engagement has been cancelled.

He’s sitting in his lab, staring at Steve’s brain scans again. He knows Steve is at lunch, that he should be doing the same, but he feels compelled to solve the puzzle. There’s nothing that stands out in the scan that would explain Steve’s ability to composite imprints. His eyes are tired from staring at the scans, so he leans back in his chair, tips his face to the ceiling, and closes his eyes.

He sits there for a moment, just breathing and trying to clear his mind, when he feels the ghost of a touch on his temple. His eyes pop open and he sits up quickly, whirling to see who’s there.

“What are you doing?” he asks, blinking at Steve. Steve is looking back at him with a little smirk on his face. Tony glances around the lab, even though he knows they’re otherwise alone. But there are cameras.

“You look tired, Tony,” he says, shrugging one shoulder.

“There are _cameras_ ,” Tony hisses. Steve quirks up one corner of his mouth.

“I know that. But right now they’re not pointed at us – check the angles.”

Tony looks around again, and he has to grudgingly admit that Steve’s right. If Tony were to move a foot to the left, it would be different, but right now, they can’t be seen. “It’s dangerous for you to be here.”

“I know,” Steve shrugs. But I wanted to see how you were doing.”

Tony sighs and scrubs a hand through his hair. “I’m okay, Steve. I’m fine. Just… working the problem.”

Steve smiles at him again. “Well, if anyone can work it out, Tony, it’s you. You _do_ have that big, sexy brain going for you.”

Tony starts to roll his eyes, but then he stops and blinks.

Steve’s right. Tony _does_ have a brain. A particularly brilliant one. He’s not exactly feeling that way at the moment, but only because the answer had been too obvious.

Instead of looking for differences in Steve’s older and newer brain scans, maybe Tony ought to be comparing them to a different brain altogether.

“You are amazing, and I love you,” Tony tells him. He glances at the cameras, glances at the lab windows – the angle is good, there’s no one to see, so he steps forward and presses a quick kiss to Steve’s mouth, pulling back with a grin. Steve smiles back.

Tony turns back to his holo screen and starts working the code to loop the security cameras in the lab. It only takes a few minutes, and then he gets up and closes the door, drawing the blinds so he and Steve are alone in the lab. Now they have complete privacy.

“Tony? What are you doing? Are you – right here? In the house?” Steve sounds shocked, scandalized, and more than a little interested. Tony snickers at him.

“As good an idea as that sounds, buttercup, we’re going to have to leave it for another time. Right now, I need you to remember that you love me for my brain.”

Steve arches an eyebrow, and Tony moves toward the imprinting chair. He sits down, leans back, and waggles his eyebrows at Steve. “I’ve got it all queued up for you. I need you to scan my brain.”

Realization dawns on Steve’s face, and he moves over to the keypad to start typing in commands. “You’re going to compare your scan to mine,” he says.

“And see what’s different, so I can make sure you retain your memories once I break into the storage room and steal your personality back.”

“I really do love your big, sexy brain,” Steve says, finishing his typing. He meets Tony’s eye as the halo moves around his head, creating a layered map of his brain.

The process is quick, and Tony doesn’t feel anything – not that he’d expected to.

Once it finishes and the chair whirs back into its inert silence, Tony leaps up and heads to the terminal to pull the scans up. Steve’s comes up first, all blues and greens and reds, a 3D representation from the holo projectors.

Tony taps a few more keys and brings up the scan the machine just took – his own brain.

He blinks.

“No, that’s not right,” he says, shaking his head. It must have been the wrong scan. He glances down at the keyboard, and types a few commands to try again.

The same scan comes up.

“That’s – something’s wrong with the scanner,” he says. He glances over at Steve, who’s staring at him in confusion.

“Are you sure?”

“No – I’m not – I don’t… This isn’t my scan.”

Steve peers at it. “How can you tell?”

“Active architecture,” Tony says, pointing at a few different areas of the scan. The parts mapped in magenta on the scan form an almost spherical shape. The term ‘architecture’ is somewhat misleading when it comes to the Actives; the process doesn’t involve implanting any technology into the brain. Rather, the Actives are overdosed with calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II, a normal protein in the brain in smaller quantities, to erase their memories, and then intertissue electric conductors rewire the synapses, remyelinating the brain tissue to accept reprogramming on a regular basis. The imprints layer over that, creating new personalities in the brain before they’re wiped clean again, over and over.

It’s the perfect marriage of neuroscience and computer science, and Tony has always been fascinated by it.

Except right now, when he’s staring dumbly at a scan of what he knows is actually his brain, which is clearly showing the presence of Active architecture.

“Tony…” Steve says, catching up. “Tony, what does this mean?”

Tony isn’t sure how to answer. He can’t force the words out of his mouth. His heart is pounding, and his head feels light.

It means he’s a doll.


	9. Chapter 9

It doesn’t make sense. It can’t be real. He’s a person – he has thoughts and feelings and – and – and he’s not a _program_ , he’s not an _imprint_ , he’s a program _mer_ , he’s a genius with a PhD in neuroscience and computer science and math and chemistry, he’s a _person_. He’s a real, live, thinking and feeling person and he’s not a fucking _doll_.

Steve’s arms are around him, and he vaguely hears soothing tones, hushed words, feels gentle hands on him, but he can’t breathe because he’s in a nightmare. His heart is pounding, out of rhythm and out of time, the arc reactor in his chest feels like fire. It makes no sense, he knows that, it’s an electromagnet, but –

Does he even need it? Is there anything actually wrong with his heart? Or is it an imprint? Something to make him vulnerable and slow and dependent?

Of course he needs it. He remembers it all too well. He remembers the feeling of the explosion, of the hot rush of air and pressure that had driven parts of his chair, his beloved imprinting chair, deep into his chest, so that it was a part of him –

_It’s not real –_

He can remember going to MIT, he can remember applying for a job, he can remember being recruited by the house –

_It’s not real –_

He can remember his life, his thoughts, his feelings, his past –

_It’s not real –_

How can it not be real? How can he feel this way, how can he know, deep in his heart of hearts, the truth of his past, of his personality –

_Persona vs parameters –_

“Tony, come on, sweetheart, please, breathe.”

Steve’s voice filters through the white noise, through the static of his brain, and he grates out a hollow laugh.

“I’m not real,” he says, and his voice is hoarse, low, sharp like shards of glass in his throat.

“Sweetheart, please, calm down, it’s okay, it’ll be okay.”

Tony knows that’s not true. It can’t be true. He can’t be an Active, he can’t be a program.

He shakes, his whole body trembling with an emotion he can’t even put a name to, but he knows it has to be true.

Of course there’s nothing wrong with the scanner, or with the file, or with the terminal. That’s his brain, up there, with its magenta links and chains showcasing where his program lines up with his brainwaves.

Active architecture.

He wonders who he was in a former life, then. He wonders what he did to become a doll.

That thought brings him pause. The hysteria dims in favour of curiosity, in the shadow of discovery.

_Who had he been?_

He swallows, feeling his eyelids tingle, and blinks a few times. His vision stops swimming enough for him to make eye contact with Steve.

“Tony? Are you okay?” Steve sounds scared, broken, worried. Tony hates that he’s the one who’s caused it.

Hates that he’s a doll.

“I’m a doll,” he says again, trying to keep the words quiet, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

“Tony…” Steve doesn’t have an answer to that. What could he say? _Steve_ is a doll. There’s nothing he can say to make this better for Tony. Nothing he can do to soothe the firebrand sting of the lie that has been his existence.

Tony takes a few deep breaths, feels his heart start to slow. He can do this. He can find the truth.

He turns and crowds in close to his computer terminal and starts typing.

Really, hacking into the house’s secure records isn’t nearly as difficult as it sounds. Tony has that ( _fake_ ) PhD in computer science, after all, and he remembers ( _no he doesn’t_ ) playing at hacking games in his dorm at college, and why would they give him this? Why would they give him memories so detrimental to their own security? They could have made him a mindless automaton, there only to do their bidding and imprint their Actives.

_Who had imprinted him? Pepper? He remembers meeting her, but that could be a lie, too._

He types furiously, sliding through back doors and secure channels and file after file, fingers flashing over the keyboard as he gets closer and closer to the personnel files, the hidden ones that Hill doesn’t think he knows about, doesn’t think he can get into, and that’s their mistake.

_Does Pepper even know?_

_Does Bruce?_

_How long have I been here?_

_Who am I?_

He finds the file he’s looking for. Personnel. It’s locked, password protected, but he skirts it and gets through the firewalls, through the locks, through all of it to get to the file.

_The Dollhouse. New York City. 2014._

_Neuro programmer: Dr. Reed Richards._

His eyes skim the words, the rushing in his ears growing louder and louder. There’s a photo of him on the screen, an identification file.

 _Tony Stark_.

Not Carbonelli.

_Tony Stark. Only child of Howard and Maria Stark._

There are notes. Howard Stark had been a genius, the CEO and founder of Stark Industries. He had invented neuro programming. The intended application of the technology was to cure degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s, ALS or Huntington’s, and personality or psychological disorders like schizophrenia. Howard and his wife found other applications for the technology, though – they found they were able to do more than just imprint their test subjects with their own memories, but could give them entirely new memories and personalities as well. They found volunteers, and the Dollhouse was born. They had been using the financial income to fund more medical research before their untimely death in a car accident.

Their son, Tony Stark – brilliant but lacking ambition, according to the file – had taken all the files Howard had on imprinting technology, on the procedure of installing the Active architecture, and had attempted to sell it to a terrorist cell in the middle east. The Ten Rings.

_He’s a traitor._

He’d been caught before the tech could make its way into hostile hands. Had he been successful, Tony Stark could have brought about the demise of the western world. The ability to wipe and create new personalities would have given an enemy the means to break down the US government completely.

His heart is pounding again.

When Stark was caught – when _he_ was caught – by the Dollhouse, by the company’s own security forces, rather than by any federal investigative agency – he had been given a choice. Spend the rest of his life in Guantanamo Bay, or spend five years under contract in the Dollhouse.

Tony Stark had signed.

He had worked in the Dollhouse without incident for more than a year, being sent on various types of engagements.

And then the Dollhouse had been infiltrated. Brock Rumlow, an agent of Helmut Zemo, had gone in to steal the imprinting technology as well as an imprint Zemo had grown attached to, and Tony – a doll – had been in the lab with the programmer – _the real programmer_ – Reed Richards. Richards had been killed in the blast, but Tony had simply been disfigured.

They wouldn’t send a broken doll out on engagements, but Tony still had a few years left on his contract.

They’d imprinted him with Richards’ back-up files, an imprint he had created, just in case, that was an amalgamation of his own memories, his own history, and his own knowledge, to create their perfect neuro programmer.

Tony Stark had been a genius in his own right, but the knowledge and skill that the Dollhouse had given him had made him brilliant beyond imagination.

Tony Carbonelli wants to vomit. His stomach roils as he reads, and then he feels a soothing, strong, warm hand on the back of his neck, and it’s Steve. Steve’s thumb presses gently into the cord of muscle beside his spine, tenderly stroking the fine hairline there.

“This can’t be happening,” Tony breathes. “How could I – how could I have been –”

“Shh, sweetheart,” Steve says, and his voice is broken, cracking. Tony’s head jerks up in shock, and there are tears streaming down Steve’s face, his eyes haunted.

“Steve?”

“You’re – you’re okay. It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”

“Steve? Why are you crying?”

“I’m just so – I shouldn’t have – God, you must think I’m a monster.”

“What?”

“All that – you wouldn’t take advantage of a doll. You kept saying. We – all those months, you wouldn’t, because it wasn’t right. And I – I did that. I took advantage of you. I _used_ you.”

“Steve, honey, no,” Tony says, skin still on fire with his shock, but he knows that he can’t let Steve feel this way, can’t stand to hear the broken, shattered tone in his voice. “You didn’t.”

Steve kneels down in front of Tony’s chair, and wraps his arms around Tony. They cling to one another for a long moment, Steve solid and warm against Tony’s skin, which feels prickly. He knows he’s trembling, but he can’t seem to make it stop.

They stay there a long time. Tony knows it’s dangerous – they’ve had the security feeds looped and the blinds closed for so long already.

But he doesn’t care. Nothing is real. Nothing but Steve, warm and solid and _here_.

What would they do if they found them here, anyway? Wipe them? Send them to the Attic?

Tony doesn’t give a fuck. None of it matters. He’s not a real person, anyway. He’s a doll. He’s a fake. He’s a traitor and a whore and a coward.

He’s just a program, after all.

+++++

They somehow manage not to get caught by anyone, and after a while Tony pulls back with a feeling of determination that he hadn’t known he was capable of.

He gives Steve a look, hard as steel, and takes a deep breath. The tremors in his hands have subsided, so he turns back to his computer terminal and begins to type again.

“What are you doing?” Steve asks him, wiping at his face. Steve’s breathing has  slowed as well, and he’s regained his composure.

“I’m not going to let them manipulate me anymore,” Tony says. “Even if I was a traitor, even if I did do those things in the file, they don’t have the right to do this to me.”

“Tony…”

“No, Steve, I know. I know that’s not fair of me. I know I’m the one who always says that the dolls make a choice when they sign that contract, but I’m unmaking this one. We’re getting out of here.”

He finishes typing, pulls the newly coded imprint wedge he’d just finished out of the slot, and moves to the chair terminal. “Get in the chair.”

Steve doesn’t hesitate, and doesn’t question. He just moves directly to the chair. His implicit trust in Tony, even after what they’ve just discovered, makes Tony’s chest flutter with love and pride.

“What are we doing?” Steve asks.

Tony pushes the wedge into the drive and starts typing as Steve sits. “You’re about to get a skills upgrade. Then you’ll have to manage to swipe a keycard from John Garrett. He’s the head of security, I’m not sure you’ve even met him. He almost never comes down here.”

Steve shakes his head, and Tony starts the imprinting process. Steve’s body tenses as his brain is reprogrammed. His ability to composite means that the imprint just adds a layer to his compartmentalized brain – this time, it’s espionage, sleight of hand, even some magician’s tricks.

“You’ll swipe the card and bring it back to me. My ident card doesn’t have clearance to go down to the lower storage levels, where we keep the original wedges, without Garrett. I’ll get yours – Steve Rogers – and we’ll go.”

“Tony, what if –”

“No. I’m not doing this anymore.”

“What about you?” Steve asks, voice quiet. “What about your original personality?”

Tony blinks, trying to ignore that his eyes are hot. “It doesn’t matter. According to the file, I’ve been this imprint for years. I don’t want – I don’t need –”

“Tony.”

“I won’t know you,” he whispers. “That’s not – you’re an outlier. Compositing isn’t normal. If we put Tony Stark back in my head, I won’t know you.”

Steve blinks. “But Tony Stark is a person,” he says. “He deserves –”

“He’s a traitor. A terrorist,” Tony says, his voice shaking. He’s angry, and scared. “He made this choice – Steve, I love you. I need to be with you. I can’t go back.”

“You can. Tony, I don’t believe you won’t know me. I have to believe that somewhere, deep down, you will know me. And you will love me again.”

“What if I don’t?” he says. It breaks his heart, but Steve has to know. “I – the me you know – will cease to exist. What if I don’t know you?”

“Then we’ll get to know each other again. It’s not your personality I fell in love with, Tony. It’s your heart, your soul. I don’t think that can be wiped out. Please, love.”

Tony stares at him for a long moment. He doesn’t want to. But he can’t deny Steve anything he asks.

“Fine. I’ll find my wedge, too.”

+++++

Tony goes back to work. Steve needs time to get hold of an ident card. Tony has forged one, but it won’t have the necessary clearances – if he could do that, he wouldn’t need Steve to steal one at all. Instead, Steve will switch the forged one out for Garrett’s, and then trade them back once Tony has managed to secure their wedges from the archives.

It will take time, though. Steve can’t just get on the elevator and go up to Garrett’s office. He has to wait until Garrett comes down to the doll floor. Tony knows it could take days or weeks for Garrett to come down on his own, and if Steve’s on an engagement at the time…

But it doesn’t matter. They’ll wait – they have to. Whatever it takes to get Steve’s wedge – and his own – and get out of the Dollhouse.

It does, in fact, take several days before Garrett comes down to the doll floor. When he does, Steve is out on an engagement. Tony thinks about trying to palm Garrett’s ident card himself, but he’s not sure he has the skill. A hysterical part of him wonders if he should just imprint himself with the same skills that Steve’s been imprinted with, but he’s not sure he could properly merge the imprints to keep his personality intact.

Garrett glares at Tony a few times while he’s down there, and then he goes back up to his office. Tony knows Garrett’s never liked him. He’d thought, before, that Garrett just didn’t like Tony’s own disregard for authority. Now, he’s pretty sure that Garrett hates him because he’s a doll. Garrett treats the dolls like objects, and knowing now what he knows…

Tony wonders why they built the rebellious streak into him. Why wouldn’t they have made him compliant? Was it to make him more creative when it came to programming the imprints?

Would his parents have kept him out of the Dollhouse if they’d been alive when he’d gotten caught trying to sell tech?

He doesn’t know. He has no idea, because he doesn’t remember his parents. He doesn’t remember his life.

Tony rubs a tired hand over his face, glancing at the clock. He’s been staring at the screen for hours. Steve is down in the art corner, trying to act normally to avoid suspicion, and Tony doesn’t know how much longer he can wait to get out of here. Away from here.

He decides he’s done waiting. He writes a note on a small piece of paper, rolls it up into a tight ball, no bigger than a pupil, and goes for a stroll through the doll floor. In order to keep up appearances, he visits Bruce, and Scott, and wanders in and out of various areas of the floor. Halfway through his stroll, he moves into the art corner, and spends some time staring at the paintings of other dolls – Wanda and Pietro, Clint and Thor – before he moves in beside Steve and stares at his painting. It’s beautiful – abstract circles and swirls and shapes. It looks like waves crashing onto a beach, like souls coming together.

But Tony doesn’t have time to admire Steve’s art. He drops the tiny note onto Steve’s workspace, then continues his aimless stroll. He doesn’t look back. His hope is that Steve will read the note – _I’m calling Garrett down_ – and then drop it into his dirty water cup. He’d written the note in washable felt, so he knows as soon as the paper gets wet the note will disappear.

He eventually makes his way back down to the lab, and calls Garrett down to talk about lab security. About the angle of the cameras, about how exposed the tech is, if someone were to break in. He makes grand gestures with his arms, he speaks manically – he does everything in his power to be distracting as Garrett steps off the elevator.

Steve walks by, and then goes back down to the yoga centre, and Tony knows he’s succeeded.

He keeps Garrett a little longer, if for no other reason than to annoy him, and then lets the man go.

Tony goes back to his lab, and there, sitting on his chair, is Garrett’s ident card.

It’s time.

+++++

Tony gets down to the storage level without any trouble. If he were a suspicious man, he might be concerned about the ease with which he’s able to get down there. There’s a close call when Mack passes him in the hall, but Tony manages to talk his way out of stopping to chat, and he doesn’t get caught. He works his way through the filing system and finds Steve Rogers’ original personality wedge. It looks just like any other wedge, and Tony wonders how someone so amazing can be boiled down to one little drive.

When he moves to find his own wedge, eyes tracking to where Tony Stark should be, he finds that it’s not there. There’s no empty space in the file drawer, but it skips right over from the S-r’s to the S-u’s. There’s no Stark in the drawer.

His heart pounds. Maybe that means it’s not true? Maybe that means he’s not a doll, that the file was wrong, that – no. He knows better. For some reason, his wedge isn’t here, but there _is_ a wedge. Somewhere.

He doesn’t have time to hunt for it. It’s not in the drawer, so they’ll just have to imprint Steve and get out without it. Steve will understand.

He goes back up to the lab, wedge tucked into the back of his jeans so no one can see. The first thing he does is loop the cameras, and close the blinds. Not long after, Steve comes in, eyes questioning.

“Did you get them?”

Tony shakes his head. “Mine wasn’t there.”

“What do you mean, it wasn’t there?”

Tony shrugs. “No wedge. We don’t have time, Steve. We have to go, you know that. It wasn’t in storage. Maybe because they don’t plan to let me out of my contract. How can they, with this stuck in my chest?” he asks, waving at the arc reactor under his T-shirt.

“Fine,” Steve says. “We can try again after. For now, let’s just get that,” he jerks his chin at the wedge in Tony’s hand, “back in my head.”

He sits down while Tony fires up the chair, and then in just moments it’s over.

Steve sits up slowly, blinking, eyes wide. “Bucky,” he says.

“What?” Tony asks, brow furrowed. He doesn’t know what Steve’s talking about, thinks maybe something’s gone wrong.

“Bucky,” Steve says, meeting Tony’s eyes. “You call him James. His name is Bucky, and he’s my best friend. He’s why I’m in the Dollhouse. We have to get him out.”


	10. Chapter 10

It doesn’t make any sense to him. He blinks a few times, then meets Steve’s eye.

“What are you talking about?”

Steve takes a deep breath, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, letting his hands hang between his legs, looking down at the floor. “I’ve known Buck my whole life. We’ve been friends since we were in diapers. He’s the reason I’m here.”

Tony just quirks an eyebrow at him.

“He disappeared. I spent everything I had on private investigators, I searched myself, I – it all led me here, to the Dollhouse. I found out what happened – that he became a doll, and I decided to break him out.”

Tony narrows his eyes. “Excuse me?”

“I didn’t understand the tech,” Steve says, shaking his head ruefully. “I thought – I thought he was a prisoner. I didn’t know I wouldn’t remember why I was here when I got in. I thought – it didn’t make sense. It sounded like science fiction.”

Tony snorts.

“It still does,” Steve acknowledges with a huff. “Anyway. That’s why I’m here. I came to them, and I volunteered to be a doll so I could find him. I came here for Bucky, Tony, I can’t just leave him. He doesn’t – you know what they’re doing to him. That engagement. The one with Pierce. You know I can’t leave him here.”

Tony meets his eye for a long moment, then sighs. Of course he knows. What they’ve been doing to James – to Bucky – is despicable. He knows they can’t leave Bucky to face that alone.

“Fine,” he says, and Steve gives him a grateful look. “I’ll go back to the storage room and find his wedge.” He glances at the clock. “But not today. It’s too dangerous. Tomorrow.”

“Can we wait another day?”

“We’ll have to,” Tony says. He turns back to the computer terminal and hacks his way back into the secure personnel files.

_Active – James Barnes._

He reads the information. He wants to know how Bucky came to be a doll – Steve volunteered to sign a contract, but most of the dolls have done something to warrant needing to escape for a while. Himself, apparently, included.

It doesn’t take him long to find what he’s looking for.

Barnes had caused a traffic accident. He hadn’t been paying attention while coming up to a railroad crossing. The police report is attached, and Tony opens it. Barnes had driven straight into the back of a minivan and pushed it into the path of the oncoming train. The van was demolished, and all five children inside, as well as their mother, were killed instantly.

“God,” Steve breathes, reading over his shoulder. “Buck, oh, God.”

Barnes must have been so wracked with guilt that when Maria Hill came to him with an offer, he didn’t think twice. Tony pulls up the contract. Barnes promised five years of service in exchange for avoiding prosecution and having memory of the incident removed from his brain upon fulfillment.

“He would have jumped at the chance. Buck isn’t – he couldn’t hurt a fly. God, he’s a vegetarian, Tony, because he can’t stand the thought of hurting an animal. He would have – he wouldn’t have been able to say no. He wouldn’t have been able to live with the guilt.”

“So now you know.”

“We have to save him.”

“Steve, I don’t have time to wipe that memory out. That would take – when Hill gives me an original wedge, to do something like this? To tamper with the memories, to heal the pain? She gives it to me for a month, Steve. It’s so delicate, I have to do it one electron at a time.”

“We don’t have a month, Tony.”

“I know. Can – I can imprint him, you know that. I can give him back Bucky Barnes. But I can’t make that memory go away.”

Steve sighs. “Then he’ll just have to learn to live with the guilt, Tony, because I can’t leave him here.”

Tony studies him for a long moment, then nods. “Okay. I’ll get the wedge tonight. We’ll imprint him in the morning, and then we’ll go.”

“Are you sure we can manage?”

Tony snorts. “Not at all,” he sighs. “But it’s worth a shot.”

+++++

Tony has no trouble slipping back into storage and pulling James’ wedge. He goes back to the lab and spends most of the night reading Barnes’ file – around three in the morning, he comes across something odd. He’s looking over scans – pre and post engagement scans. There’s one, from just before Tony Stark had come to the Dollhouse, actually. Tony’s not sure what it is about it, but it gives him pause.

He pulls up the engagement record. Should have been fairly standard, really. It was a romantic engagement, but a simple one. Wine and dine a society matron. But the scan was –

Tony checks closer, pulls up the code file. He recognizes the code. It’s a sleeper imprint. But the code is – it wouldn’t have been the programmer. Any programmer would have seen the problems. Even Pepper would have seen how the persona would have warred with the parameters. How James would have carried out the sleeper protocol, but would have been so conflicted. It would have been incredibly painful, but he would have done it.

It wouldn’t have been a programmer then. Someone else in the house who had access to the imprints, to the system, and just enough neuro programming knowledge to slap together the shoddy sleeper protocol.

Someone with full access to the house.

Hill? No. She doesn’t know enough about the neuro programming.

No one does.

No one but the Director. Tony remembers Hill saying that, once. That the Director would know if Tony was sabotaging the sexual submissive engagements. That he checked all the codes, that he understood enough of them to – to put together a rough imprint.

Or to tamper with an existing one.

Tony glances at the date on the engagement again. He knows that date. He’s just read about – Howard and Maria Stark. That’s the date of their car accident.

Tony blinks.

The New York Dollhouse’s founders died in a car accident the same day that one of the Actives was secretly imprinted with a sleeper protocol, most likely by the Director himself.

Because the Director wouldn’t have been the Director, then, would he? He surely would have been in the Dollhouse already, promotions are always from within, but – if Howard Stark had been the Director, then surely whoever this man was stood next in line.

He’d killed the Starks to get the job. He’d killed Tony’s parents.

He had to have. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

Tony sits back in his chair. He needs more information. If the Director killed his parents, then he would know who Tony really is. He must.

Tony’s blood goes cold. Of course the Director would know who he really is. He doesn’t know about Hill, or Garrett, or even Bruce. To them, he might just be a doll, with no real identity. But to the Director…

He shuts down the system and goes to bed. He needs to think it through.

+++++

In the morning, Steve brings James – Bucky – up to the lab. James thinks he’s coming for a treatment, and technically he is, but of course Steve and Tony know the truth. They settle James into the chair, and Tony starts it up. It’s quick, and then it’s done.

When James opens his eyes, they are filled with tears, and he looks directly at Tony. “Did it not work?”

“Buck,” Steve breathes beside him. “Buck, you’re okay.”

“Stevie?” He sounds so confused, a little broken. “What are you – has it – has it been five years? Why are you here?”

Steve and Tony share a look. “It’s only been four, Buck.”

Bucky turns and stares at Tony, face pale. “I wasn’t – I was supposed to forget. That was the deal. Put me back under, I can’t – I have another year, and then he said I could –”

“Shh, Buck, shh. It’s okay. It’s okay, Bucky.”

Steve gathers Bucky into his arms, holding tight as the other man falls apart. His shoulders shake, and he’s obviously crying. Tony doesn’t know how long to wait, but he knows they don’t have much time.

He gives them a moment, though. They’ve earned that much.

Finally, Steve pulls back. “Buck, I know it hurts, I know – but we have to go.”

“We can’t leave yet,” Tony says with a deep sigh.

“What?” Steve turns a surprised eye on him. “What do you mean? You said we had to go.”

Tony closes his eyes, then turns to Bucky before he opens them. “Bucky Barnes? I’m Tony Stark.”

Bucky’s eyes widen. “Stark?”

Tony nods. “I think you knew my father.”

“Yeah, he runs the house. He gave me the contract. Told me I could – I could give him five years, and then I would forget all about … about the accident.”

“Oh, Buck,” Steve says sadly.

“He doesn’t run the house anymore,” Tony says. “I don’t know who does, but I think he knows me.”

Steve raises a questioning eyebrow.

“I think … I think the Director had my parents killed.” He turns back to Bucky. “And I think he used you to do it.”

“That’s insane,” Steve bursts out. “Buck wouldn’t –”

“No, but the sleeper assassin imprint the Director put in his head would.”

That stops both men short.

“I think the Director had my parents killed so he could take control of the Dollhouse, and I think he put me in here to keep me out of the way.”

Steve steps forward. “Are you sure?”

Tony lets out a hollow, brittle laugh. “No. Not at all.” He lets his eyes soften and looks up at Steve, trying to show Steve how much he needs him to agree to the next request. “That’s why I want to break into his office before we go. We still have Garrett’s ident card. I want to see if there’s anything in there – anything that could be proof. Anything we could use to – or maybe my wedge. Something.”

Tony hadn’t wanted his wedge, not really. But to know that his parents’ murderer might have it, stashed somewhere… he can’t let it go. He wants to stay who he is, wants to be the man Steve fell in love with, but he feels like leaving Tony Stark there, at the mercy of that man… It feels like abandoning him. Tony can’t bring himself to do it.

“Please, love,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “Please.”

“What on earth is going on in here?” Pepper asks from the doorway. Tony has no idea how long she’s been there, but she looks angry.

She looks like she’s heard most of their conversation.

Oh, God.

+++++

Bucky’s on his feet instantly, headed for her, and Tony knows Steve said he wouldn’t hurt anyone, but suddenly he’s terrified, that maybe he was wrong, and – “No!” he cries, rushing forward, getting between Bucky and Pepper.

Bucky blinks at him.

“Tony?” Pepper’s voice is small, and he pulls her into the lab and closes the door.

“Pepper, I can explain.”

“Can you?”

Tony drops his chin to his chest. “How much did you hear?”

Pepper’s eyes glisten with unshed tears. She sniffs delicately and blinks a few times, and that’s all it takes to regain her stoic composure. “You lied about who you are,” she accuses.

Steve steps forward – to protect him, to intimidate her, Tony doesn’t know. He puts out a hand and gives Pepper a look.

“Pep. You know me. You know I wouldn’t lie.”

“You said your name was Carbonelli.”

“I thought it was.”

She stares at him, eyes dark. “Tony, you’re not making any sense.”

Tony sighs and leads her to a chair, settling her down in it while he talks. He tells her the whole story, as quickly as he can. About Steve compositing, about Tony’s parents, about the Director. About everything they’d discovered about the Dollhouse.

When he’s done, she’s staring at him. Her usually-ramrod-straight spine is curved, like she’s trying to turn in on herself. Her face is pale as alabaster.

“Oh, Tony,” she says, and he doesn’t want the pity in her voice. Doesn’t want her sympathy.

He just wants to be free.

“Will you help us?”

Pepper takes a deep breath, looking up at Tony through her eyelashes.

“What do you want to do?” she asks.

“We need to get to the Director’s office. I want – I need to know who he is, I need to find my wedge. I can’t just leave it.”

“Will you – will you imprint it?”

Tony looks down. “I don’t know. I just know I can’t leave it with him. And I want to see if there’s proof. Of what he did to my parents. More than just the sleeper code, because it’s not enough.”

“You want to go into the Director’s office and rifle through his stuff?” she asks. Tony bites his lip.

“Kind of?”

“We’re not enough, Tony. You know that, right?” Pepper gestures at the three men. “This isn’t enough. We need help.”

Tony chews on his lip a little harder, then glances up at Steve. Steve gives him the barest of nods, carte blanche to do whatever he feels he needs to. God, Tony loves him.

“Okay. Okay, I know who we can trust.”

“Tony –” Pepper starts.

“No. No, I think we can trust them. Romanoff and Coulson.”

“What?”

“I don’t – they haven’t been here that long. Around a year, both of them. But they’re – they’re good at their jobs, but they’re good people, too. They don’t – I just think they’d understand. If I told them the truth.”

Pepper studies him for a long moment, then nods. “Fine. I’ll call them down. But Tony… you’d better be right. Or all four of us will end up in the Attic.”

Pepper calls Natasha and has her collect Coulson to come down to the lab. Tony sends Steve and Bucky into the back room – he needs to start slow. He needs to explain everything to them without the added pressure of Steve and Bucky in the room.

So he lays it out for them. He tells them about Steve, tells them about the Troubled Water engagements – and his face flames red at that– and tells them his real name. Tells them he’s a doll.

Natasha doesn’t look surprised, but that doesn’t shock Tony. He doesn’t think she’s ever looked surprised in her life.

Coulson, though… Coulson looks… flapped. Tony wants to laugh. He’s spent more than a year trying to push Coulson’s buttons, trying to make the unflappable Coulson lose his unbreakable cool.

Coulson is blinking at him, mouth a little slack. “That’s… uh… wow. Did not expect _this_ today.”

“I need your help,” Tony says, after a moment. “Both of you. What they’re doing here – what the Director is doing… what he’s _done_. We can’t let it keep happening.”

Natasha raises one perfect eyebrow. “You’d have us subvert our employer? You’d have us break our contracts?”

Tony shrugs helplessly. “Please.”

Coulson manages to collect himself enough to give Tony one of his cool, sly smiles. “Probably going to be the most interesting thing to happen this month,” he says, turning to Natasha.

“Work _has_ been feeling a little down in the doldrums,” she agrees with an exaggerated sigh.

“You know, I got a job offer from a federal agency on the outside?” Coulson says nonchalantly. “The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division? They want me to be an agent. Bet I could get you an interview.”

“I could use a change,” Natasha says.

They turn to Tony as one.

“We’re in.”

+++++

“I think we should tell Fury,” Natasha says, half-way through their planning session. Tony’s head snaps up to look at her.

“We don’t even know Fury. I don’t trust him,” he says.

Natasha shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m pretty good at reading people. He’s hiding something, sure, but I think he’d help. I think he _can_ help.”

Tony shakes his head again. “No. There’s already too many of us. It’s too dangerous.”

“I’m with Romanoff,” Coulson says. “I think Nick could be a big help.”

“Why isn’t anyone listening to me?” Tony says, his voice pitched higher in what is definitely not a whine. “Don’t you understand? If he turns on us, we’ll all be in the Attic. We can’t take that chance.”

+++++

When Fury joins them in the lab, and they tell him what’s going on, he tilts his head and gives Tony a measuring look. Tony glares mutinously back.

“That actually makes a lot of sense,” Fury says after a moment.

“What do you mean? It makes literally _zero_ sense,” Tony says. “The whole thing is insane. True, but insane.”

“Well, I thought you knew who you were, when I first got here. But that didn’t make any sense. Why would Tony Stark be down in the lab under an assumed name? He wouldn’t.”

“You knew who I was?”

Fury smirks. “Who do you think got Coulson a job offer?” He turns to Natasha. “There’s room for you, too, if you want it.”

“Wait –” Tony glances around. Pepper is blinking owlishly, and Bucky looks as confused as he has all morning, but no one else looks surprised at the turn of events. “You’re with the Strategic Homeland … Environmental… what was it again?”

“SHIELD,” Fury says. “I’m with SHIELD. And what Stark Industries is doing? This kind of mind control technology? My job is to get it out of the private sector and safe in the hands of someone who won’t use it for personal gain.”

Tony blinks at Steve for a moment. “Guess we’re getting out just in time,” he says.

+++++

They decide to wait for nightfall. There will be fewer staff members, and a smaller chance of getting caught.

Tony flies through the process of putting together a couple of personality wedges. He takes bits and pieces of existing code and blends them together into two very specific imprints.

“We’ll come back for them,” Tony says to Steve, when they’re alone. They only have a few moments together while Natasha and Coulson go to get their Actives.

“The dolls?”

“We can’t – we can’t leave them all here. Not … not knowing what I know, now. We’ll bring the Dollhouse down. Once we’re out. We’ll help Nick.”

“I love you,” Steve says, pressing his mouth to Tony’s. It’s quick, barely more than a peck, but it’s fortifying enough for Tony.

“If… if it doesn’t work. If we get caught,” Tony starts. “I love you. I’ll always love you. Even if we – even if we find my wedge, and put Tony Stark back in my head. I’ll always love you. I’ll never stop.”

“Let’s go, boys,” Bucky says from the doorway. “Time’s wasting.” His eyes still look haunted, but he seems stronger now. Tony thinks he can handle what’s coming.

He hopes they all can.

He imprints Sam first. Soldier training, base jumping, acrobatics. Then he imprints Clint – a life in the circus, for the agility, and quick reflexes, weaponry skills, even a bow and arrow – he’s got plans for that one.

Their infiltration of the Director’s office is both simple and incredibly difficult. Pepper stays in the lab – Tony wants to keep her protected if they get caught. There, she’ll have plausible deniability. She can also keep an eye on security camera feeds, and loop the ones that might show the team’s whereabouts.

Clint uses a bow to shoot an arrow with a grappling hook and rope up the elevator shaft – it has to go up 15 storeys, and it has a very small target it has to hit if they hope to make their way up. He takes the shot and it’s a perfect hit. They climb, and then crawl through the vents to a different elevator shaft, and make their way to the thirty-seventh floor.

The Director’s office is on the thirty-sixth.

Tony sends Clint and Sam further along. Their job is to separate, then come at the hallway in front of the Director’s office from opposite sides. Fury, Natasha and Coulson have come up through the elevator, trying to act as nonchalant as possible. Again, Tony wants them to be able to claim plausible deniability. If they all get caught, the handlers could say they didn’t know. That Tony was behind everything.

He doesn’t want to take anyone down with him if he can help it.

If the handlers can keep from being suspected of any wrongdoing here, they’d still have a chance to get what they need to close the Dollhouse altogether. Tony likes having a back-up plan.

Tony, Steve and Bucky enter the Director’s office through a panel in the ceiling. Steve lowers Tony down first, then Bucky, then follows them, graceful and quiet. Tony heads straight for the desk, and points Steve in the direction of a filing cabinet. He doesn’t even know where to start, but they don’t have much time.

He hears a commotion outside, and he knows Clint and Sam have run into security. He’s not worried – the skillsets he’d imprinted them with will make short work of Dollhouse guards, but even so, one guard means more. Means they’re even shorter on time.

He digs into the drawer, watches as Steve snaps open the lock on the filing cabinet. The drawer isn’t helpful – no wedges, no files. He moves to another drawer, comes up empty.

“Tony.”

Steve pulls a wedge out of the drawer. Right on the side, there’s a label – Tony Stark. It’s his.

“Well, my boy, I can’t say I’m surprised to see you here,” says a gruff voice from the back of the room. A tall, solid man, bald with a white goatee, moves out of the shadows. Where had he come from? Tony looks around, panicked, and sees a secondary elevator. He hadn’t know about it. How could he be so stupid?

Steve moves in front of him protectively.

“Who are you?” Steve asks, voice a growl.

“Why, son, I’m the Director – and Tony’s godfather. I’m Obadiah Stane.”


	11. Chapter 11

Tony doesn’t know him, but that’s not a surprise. The man who calls himself Obadiah Stane doesn’t look familiar at all, but, then, why should he? Any recognition Tony might have of him will be on the wedge Steve’s clutching protectively in his hand.

The words he’d spoken start to work their way into Tony’s consciousness. Tony’s godfather? This man had been a friend of his parents, and had probably killed them.

“So when did you figure it out?” The Director – Stane – asks, posture and body language suggesting boredom, but Tony’s not sure he believes it.

“Figure what out?” Tony asks, proud that his voice is clear and strong, not shaking at all from the shock of having been caught.

Stane smirks. “That your name isn’t ‘Carbonelli.’ That you’re a doll. I assume that’s why you’re here, in my office?”

“I ran a scan of my brain. Saw the architecture.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Tony can see Bucky moving slowly closer to Stane. He puffs out his chest to try and be distracting, moving out from behind Steve a little to face Stane head on.

“And what, exactly, were you hoping to accomplish here?”

“You can’t keep me a prisoner here anymore,” Tony says, jerking his chin at the wedge in Steve’s hand. “That’s mine.”

Stane grins outright this time, but it’s insidious. Cunning.

“Don’t think about it, James,” he says, holding a palm up at Bucky. Stane doesn’t even look in his direction. Bucky halts his progress, glancing at Tony and Steve for direction.

Stane pulls a device out of his pocket.

_Shit._

It’s the remote wipe device he had made Tony build. It’s got a short range and it’s not capable of targeting directionally, but it doesn’t need to be.

There are three Actives in the room, and Tony knows what a remote wipe will mean.

It would take them back to the Dollhouse. Steve and Bucky would be wiped, would be erased, and he would go back to the lab, none the wiser of what had transpired over the past months – Steve, and his brain scan, and his discovery of himself. Sam and Clint, if they’re close enough in the hall, would be wiped, too.

Pepper, Coulson, Natasha and Fury, who all know the truth, would be sent to the Attic.

Maybe Tony would, too. They could imprint any of the dolls as a neuro programmer. Obviously. Maybe it would be Pietro this time. Or Wanda. It doesn’t matter.

He stares at the device in Stane’s hand. Wonders how he could have been so stupid as to go through with building it.

“You know, I always wondered if we’d end up here,” Stane muses. “I always knew you were smart. That was never the problem. Your problem, Tony, is that you’ve always done things your way. Sometimes, you just have to go along with the current, and you’ve never been very good at that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You read your file, right? Ordinarily I wouldn’t tell you this, but since you won’t remember this conversation,” Stane waggles the device in his hand, “I suppose it won’t matter. Your file explains why you’re here, right? Why you signed a contract with the Dollhouse?”

“Yes,” Tony says, jaw clenching. He knows what he did is unforgivable – it’s part of the reason he isn’t looking forward to getting his personality back. He’s the kind of person who could sell this technology – this dangerous, terrible technology – to terrorists. Steve can’t love that kind of person, he knows it.

“Well, it’s not _entirely_ accurate,” Stane says, quirking an amused eyebrow. “There obviously needed to be a reason, a trail, in case anyone ever got into the servers. Everyone at the Dollhouse has a contract – and a strong reason for signing it.”

Tony blinks at him.

“But not all of those contracts have actually been signed, and not all of those reasons are based in fact. Yours is one of them.”

“It’s not – he didn’t do it?” Steve’s voice betrays his anger at the prospect. “Then why is he here? In the house? Why would he volunteer?”

Stane gives Tony an unimpressed look. “You imprinted him with someone stupid? Well, I suppose there isn’t a lot of need for brains when you’ve got a body like his.”

“You shut the fuck up,” Tony growls.

“Oh-ho-ho!” Stane laughs, sounding genuinely amused. “I’d watch where you point that attitude, Tony. Don’t forget who’s pulling your strings.”

Tony clenches his hands into fists, but he doesn’t say anything more. All Stane has to do is press the button, and they’re done for. He knows they have to figure out a way to get the device away from him, but he doesn’t know if any of them can move fast enough to do it before he manages to activate it.

“What did you mean, Tony’s file isn’t accurate?” Steve asks.

Stane shrugs one shoulder. “Just that. There’s a lovely little narrative in there about how Tony was caught trying to sell neuro programming tech to the Ten Rings. That narrative is a _bit_ twisted from the truth, I’m afraid. You see, Tony Stark wanted to close down the Dollhouse. He didn’t approve of what we do here. He couldn’t see the application for it, couldn’t see the profit involved, and didn’t care. Well, _I_ cared.” Stane’s voice picks up a growl as he speaks. “Howard was going to cut me out. He wanted to shut down the Dollhouse and sell off the assets, and move back into research. He wanted to use the neuro programming technology for medical science.”

“Imagine what you could do – you could cure Alzheimers, MS, psychotic disorders,” Tony says. His voice trails off as he realizes. “But there’s no money for medical applications.”

“Well, there’s _some_ money. But there’s _more_ money in sex. You’ve developed just enough patents for us to keep our federal funding and pass the organization off as a medical research company, but the real money’s in the engagements. In the ability to reprogram a person to be whatever a client wants.”

“And my parents were going to shut it down.”

“I thought Howard hadn’t changed the shareholder’s agreement yet. In the event of his death, his shares would still pass to me, and I’d have controlling interest. I could keep the house running, I could change the nature of the engagements to maximize profits.”

“You could sell people’s bodies and well-being to the highest bidder,” Tony says.

“Now you’re getting it. But then, there was you.”

“He got in the way,” Steve says.

Stane nods. “Turns out Howard did change the agreement, and his will. His shares went to you. And you’d never been a real big fan of the concept of neuro programming for profit.”

“So you wiped me.”

Stane snorts. “I did more than that. I faked your death. Your shares went to me, and I took the company in the direction it needed to go.”

“Why fake his death?” Steve asked. “Why not just imprint him and make him do what you wanted? Make everyone think he was running things?”

“Look at him,” Stane says, nodding his chin at Tony. “Perfectly serviceable as a doll. He fetched a pretty penny before Banner had to put that thing in his chest.”

“You stole my life.” Tony takes a step forward, moving around Steve. He wants to attack, wants to leap forward and claw Stane’s eyes out.

“Oh, it’s been mine for a long time, Tony, my boy.”

“They trusted you. My parents.”

“You know, I always cared about you, Tony. Them, too. But this is the way it has to be. If you would have just listened to reason, this wouldn’t be necessary,” Stane says, and he lifts the remote wipe device up, his thumb flicking up to press the button.

Tony leaps for it. He’s not sure if Steve or Bucky know what it will do, but _he_ is more than aware. That little piece of technology will be the end of them, of their mission here. If Stane manages to press that button, they lose.

Tony grabs hold of Stane’s thick wrist, moves to try and wrench the device from his hand. Stane turns his body, but his grip has changed and he can’t quite press the button.

Tony feels Steve behind him, pushing forward and trying to get the device from Stane’s hand. Even if Steve doesn’t know what it’s for, he’s realized Tony thinks it needs to be neutralized, so he does what he can to help.

Stane snarls, turning his body and kicking out – it catches Tony in the knee, and he hears a crack – he doesn’t know if it’s broken, but all he can feel is fire, and his vision goes white for a moment with pain. He wails as he drops to the floor, hands releasing Stane out of reflex. Stane crows with triumph, and he grins, the expression manic, before pressing the little grey button on the side of the device.

Tony’s head feels like it’s going to explode, and then he doesn’t feel anything at all.

+++++

There are people in the room. The tall man with no hair is laughing, and he doesn’t know why. There is another man with longer hair, and another that’s blonde. Tony knows the man with long hair, his name is James. Sometimes he goes to the art corner and James is there.

Tony glances around the room. He isn’t sure where he is. He wonders if he can get to the art corner from here. Or perhaps he should go for a swim?

The bald man is panting, as though he has been doing exercise. Tony blinks at him. “Did I fall asleep?”

The bald man makes a funny shape with his mouth. Tony doesn’t know the word for it.

The blonde man looks at Tony. Tony stares back. He likes this man. He isn’t sure why. Tony doesn’t know who he is, but he thinks the man is nice. He seems nice. He has nice eyes.

“Tony?” he asks.

“Hello,” Tony greets, smiling. He likes to be friendly.

The blonde man moves very fast, and he leaps toward the bald man and hits him. It looks like a very hard hit, and the bald man falls to the floor. Tony thinks he might have gone to sleep, because he isn’t moving.

“Tony?” the blonde man asks. “Sweetheart? Do you know me?”

“Are you my friend?”

The blonde man frowns, and Tony doesn’t like that. He thinks the blonde man should be happy all the time.

“You’re sad,” Tony says.

“I’m – it’s okay, Tony. Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

Tony frowns. His knee hurts. “I hurt my knee.”

“Can you walk?”

“I don’t remember what I did,” Tony says. “I don’t know how I hurt it.”

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” the blonde man says, moving closer. He kneels on the ground beside Tony. He places his hands on Tony’s face, and they are warm. Tony enjoys the feeling of them on his cheeks.

“You have nice hands,” Tony says, smiling at the blonde man. “What’s your name?”

The blonde man sighs. “My name is Steve,” he says.

“Hello, Steve.”

Steve looks at him for a moment longer, then turns to look at James. “Buck? Are you okay?”

“I try to be my best,” James says, and Tony smiles, because he agrees. It is always nice to be their best.

“That’s James,” Tony says, trying to be helpful. “He’s my friend.”

“Right. You – right. Okay, we need help.” Steve stands up and moves to the door, and Tony frowns. He liked the feeling of Steve’s hands on his face, and now that they’re gone his face feels colder.

Steve stands at the door for a moment, and Tony thinks he is trying to hear something. Tony doesn’t know what he might be trying to hear, but he knows he can’t hear anything. Steve opens the door and looks out of it. Tony wonders what’s on the other side.

“Coulson? Natasha?”

Tony doesn’t know who Steve is talking to, but he’s not sure how to ask.

“Shall I go now?” Tony asks. He thinks he should go. Perhaps he should go see Dr. Banner about his knee. He likes Dr. Banner. Dr. Banner is nice. He’ll know what to do about Tony’s knee.

“No, Tony, just – just wait here, okay?” Steve says.

Tony nods, because he likes to be helpful, and if Steve wants him to stay here, he can do that.

Two other men and a woman come into the room with Steve a moment later. One man is wearing a suit and tie, the other has a black circle over his eye. The woman has very red hair. Tony wonders if it is as soft as it looks.

“Hello,” he says, smiling to greet them. It’s important to be nice.

“That’s not right,” the woman says. “He seems docile. Tony is never docile.”

“I try to be my best,” Tony tells her.

The man in the suit and the red-haired woman look at one another for a moment. Steve points at the man sleeping on the floor.

“That’s the Director. He has a – I don’t know what it is, but he pushed a button and now Tony and James are – they’re wiped.”

“In doll state,” the man with one eye says.

Tony smiles. He isn’t sure what’s going on, but he wants to be friendly.

“What do we do?” Steve says.

The red-haired woman looks at Tony and at James one at a time, then turns to Steve. “We have to take them back downstairs and imprint them.”

“What about him?” Steve asks, pointing to the sleeping man again. “He’s – I don’t know what kind of proof there might be, but he kidnapped Tony. Faked his death and forced him to be a doll. He killed Tony’s parents.”

The suited man and the red-haired woman share another look.

“I’ll take care of it,” the suited man says. “Send me Clint, and you two go down and imprint them again. Nick, you stay here with me, too.”

“We’ll take Sam in case we run into any resistance,” says the red-haired woman.

Tony isn’t sure who Clint and Sam are. He thinks he knows a Clint, maybe they’re friends. He’ll have to ask someone.

“Is security dealt with?” Steve asks.

“It’s pretty much a skeleton crew overnight, but you never know. There could be stragglers,” the red-haired woman says. She turns to Tony and James. “Would you boys like a treatment?”

“Oh, yes, please,” says James.

Tony nods. “I enjoy my treatments.”

“ _Great_ ,” says the red-haired woman.

Steve looks back at the man in the suit. “You’re sure you can handle him? What if he wakes up?”

The man in the suit makes a face. “I’m full of surprises.”

“Besides, Clint will be here,” the man with one eye says. “Between the three of us, we’ll be fine.”

The red-haired woman turns toward the door, moving through it. “Come on, guys, we’re burning daylight.”

“Fire is bad,” James says.

“It’s night time,” Tony says, looking at the windows. It’s dark outside, that means night time. Steve reaches down, and Tony takes his hand. His hand is still warm, and Tony likes the feel of it. Steve helps him to his feet.

Tony’s knee hurts very badly. He makes a face, and isn’t sure what to do. If he tries to step on it, it hurts.

“Buck – James, can you come over to Tony’s other side and help me with him? He’s having trouble walking because of his knee.”

“Will he be okay?” James asks.

“Yeah, he just needs help right now.”

“I like to be helpful,” James says. Tony smiles. James is a good friend.

Steve takes Tony’s hand and loops it around his shoulders, then turns to James. “Put his arm over your shoulders like this, and then he can walk without putting any weight on his knee.”

James does as Steve asks, and Tony limps after the red-haired woman with James and Steve on either side of him. Steve is right – Tony doesn’t have to put barely any weight at all on his hurt knee. He smiles up at Steve. Steve is nice, and very smart. Tony likes him.

“I like you,” he says, still smiling.

Steve smiles, too, but his eyes look sad. “I like you, too,” he says.

They move into an elevator. Tony doesn’t really remember ever being in an elevator before, but he knows what it is. Another tall man with dark skin joins them, but he has both eyes, and all of his hair. The red-haired woman is already there.

“Threats are neutralized, ma’am,” the dark man says.

“Good work, Agent,” she says with a nod.

“Hello,” James says, nodding at the man. The man stares at him for a moment. “My name is James.”

“Agent Kestrel,” the man says. He doesn’t seem very friendly, so Tony turns back to Steve. Steve has a nice face.

The elevator stops after only a little while longer, and the doors open. Tony recognizes the hallway – he can see the art corner from here. He could go down the stairs for a swim, too.

“Are we going to see Dr. Banner?”

“You know him?” Steve says.

“Dr. Banner is nice.”

Steve looks at the red-haired woman. “So Dr. Banner probably knows Tony’s a doll. And didn’t say anything.”

The red-haired woman frowns. “Bruce has been here a long time. What could he have done about it?”

“Stopped it. Anything.”

“He can’t know the whole story,” the red-haired woman says. “Hill doesn’t know who the Director is, it stands to reason Bruce wouldn’t either.”

“But he knew Tony was a doll.”

“And he knew that he put that arc reactor in Tony’s chest to save his life. And that it rendered him un-engageable. What else could he do?”

Steve sighs, and it makes Tony sad. He wants Steve to be happy.

They move into another room, and there is a thin woman with long hair. Her hair is red, too, but it’s lighter than the red-haired woman’s.

“What – what are you doing back?” The thin woman looks surprised to see them.

“Hit a snag,” says the red-haired woman. She nods toward a chair in the middle of the room. “The Director had a remote wipe device.”

“Oh, Tony,” says the thin woman. She sounds sad.

“Hello. I’m Tony,” Tony says, smiling at her. He likes to make new friends.

The thin woman sighs. Steve and James help Tony sit on a stool, and then Steve turns to her. “We need to re-imprint them. Start with Bucky.”

The thin woman looks at James, and then back to Steve. “It didn’t wipe you?”

Steve shakes his head. Tony’s not sure what they’re talking about. “It didn’t work on me. Probably because of the compositing.”

The thin woman stares at him for another moment, then turns to James. “James. Would you like a treatment?”

“I enjoy my treatments,” James says. Tony nods. He enjoys his treatments, too.

“Great. Okay, sit down, right here,” the thin woman says, and helps James into the strange chair. It moves, and the back slides down until James is lying down. The thin woman moves to a panel and types on it, and then part of the chair lights up. The light goes out after a minute, and then James sits up.

“What happened?” he asks. He looks at Steve. “Stevie? We were – we were upstairs, weren’t we?”

Steve sighs. “Long story, Buck. We’ll talk about it later.”

James nods at this. Tony wonders who ‘Buck’ is.

“Okay, let’s get Tony in here,” says the thin woman.

“Well –” Steve stops. “That’s the thing.”

The red-haired woman and the thin woman both turn to him. “What are we going to imprint him with?” he says.

The red-haired woman takes a step closer to Steve. “What do you mean?”

Steve sighs. Tony wants to get up and pat his shoulder, but that will hurt his knee. Steve looks sad, and Tony doesn’t like that he looks sad.

“We have two choices,” Steve says. “We can imprint him with Tony Carbonelli, the neuro programmer, with all his memories up until the wipe... or we can imprint him with Tony Stark.”

Everyone looks at one another for a moment. Tony wonders what they’re talking about. Are they talking about him? His name is Tony.

The thin woman sighs. The red-haired woman speaks. “The objective was to get Tony Stark’s personality and imprint him, wasn’t it?”

Steve nods, chewing his lip. “Yes. But Tony Stark doesn’t know – any of us. He’s been gone for years.”

James crosses his arms. “Should we imprint him with Tony Carbonelli first? Then let him decide?”

The thin woman shakes her head. “He’ll chicken out. I know him.”

Steve turns to look at Tony.

“So make the choice for him,” the red-haired woman says. “You know what the right decision is.”

Steve nods, but doesn’t take his eyes off Tony. “I know. But – I didn’t get to say goodbye.” His voice is quiet, and sad.

No one says anything for a long time. Tony begins to wonder if he should say something. Maybe he should try to make Steve feel better?

“Tony?” Steve says. “Do you – I know you don’t know me.”

“You’re Steve.”

Steve smiles a little. “Yes. I’m Steve. But – you don’t _really_ know me. We’ve only just met. Do you want to know me? Do you want to remember me?”

“You’re very nice,” Tony says. “I try to be my best.”

Steve sighs again. Tony wonders why he keeps doing that. Steve glances behind him at the thin woman, then at the red-haired woman.

“Imprint him with Tony Stark. I can’t – it’s not fair for me to make him be Tony Carbonelli anymore. It wouldn’t be right. Tony Stark didn’t deserve to disappear.”

“You could say goodbye,” the thin woman says quietly. “You deserve that much. He might not know you at all after.”

Steve meets Tony’s eyes. “It doesn’t matter. Not in the grand scheme of things. I’ll just – have to let him get to know me again.”

The red-haired woman, after a long moment, steps forward and puts a gentle hand on Tony’s arm. “Would you like a treatment, Tony?”

“Yes, please,” he says. They help him into the chair that James had sat in, and it moves until he’s lying down. Steve comes to stand beside him, and Tony looks up at him. He smiles, because he wants to see Steve smile.

“I love you, Tony,” Steve says. He looks very sad. He reaches out and takes Tony’s hand. Tony likes how warm it feels.

“Don’t be sad,” Tony tells him. “You should be happy. We can go to the art corner after, if you like. The art corner always makes me feel happy.”

“Okay, Tony,” Steve says, but his voice is still sad.

He keeps looking down at Tony, and then Tony feels a strange sensation in his head. It’s tight, and it pinches. He doesn’t want –

+++++

Tony opens his eyes. He feels strange. He doesn’t understand – he looks around. Who are these people? Is that – is this the neuro programming lab? He’d taken a tour here, once, with his dad. His dad – oh, shit, his parents. There was an accident. Just a few weeks ago. How could he have forgotten? He wonders where Obie is.

His hand is warm. He glances down, and sees that there’s another, much larger hand around it. His eyes follow the arm – the very muscled arm – up to the brightest blue eyes he’s ever seen. They’re staring at him – like they’re looking into his very soul.

“What’s going on?” he asks. “Where – where’s Obie? Why am I in the neuro lab?”

Blue Eyes glances around the room – Tony sees other people, none of whom he recognizes. He looks back at Blue Eyes.

“Do – do I know you?”

Blue Eyes stares at him. “Do you?”

Tony blinks. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t think he recognizes him. But – he feels comfortable. Tony looks back down at their joined hands. He doesn’t know Blue Eyes. He’d know if he did. But there’s something about him – he makes Tony feel warm. Comfortable. Safe.

“I don’t know. I think – what’s your name?”

“My name is Steve,” Blue Eyes says.

Tony holds his gaze for a moment longer. “I don’t think we’ve met. But I feel like I know you. I feel like – we’re connected, somehow. Is that crazy?”

Steve smiles down at him, some of the melancholy leaving his expression. The smile is blinding and beautiful. “No, Tony. It’s not crazy. We are.”

**END.**

**Author's Note:**

> There is no overt rape in this story. Consent comes up, in the sense that the Dolls, while programmed, consent to everything because they're programmed to, and the "original" personalities within those Dolls are unaware and therefore not technically able to consent. There is mention of at least one instance of a Doll being requested to specifically NOT give consent, but that Doll does not actually go on that assignment. Yes, that's a teeny, tiny spoiler, which is why it's in the end notes. Also, I don't write character death, and if I did I would 100% tag that shit. There is MENTION of some characters having died in this story, but it's in the past and it also exists in canon.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Missing Memories and Missing You (How the Light Gets In Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13785234) by [MiniRaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniRaven/pseuds/MiniRaven)




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